Sutton R N
Postgrad Med J. 1978 Nov;54(637):747-51. doi: 10.1136/pgmj.54.637.747.
Any approach towards elucidating the aetiology of an ill defined disease such as 'epidemic neuromyasthenia' has to be a comprehensive and wide-ranging one. Although viruses must be strong candidates, by reason of their ubiquity, this need not necessarily be the case and we have recently seen the onset of Legionnaires' disease as a new entity caused by a bacterium. We do not always recognize that a particular virus may affect the entire community and that the patient seen in hospital may represent only the tip of the submerged iceberg and that, in closed communities more of the iceberg will be seen. Silent viral epidemics are probably frequent and may only be recognized in retorspect. As an example the recent epidemic with adenovirus type 7 will be alluded to. Possible variations in virus and, to a lesser extent, in the host which could modify the course of an individual infection are discussed.
任何旨在阐明诸如“流行性神经肌无力”这种定义不明确疾病病因的方法都必须是全面且广泛的。尽管病毒因其无处不在必然是有力的候选因素，但情况未必如此，我们最近见证了军团病这一由细菌引起的新疾病的出现。我们并非总能认识到特定病毒可能会影响整个社区，而在医院见到的患者可能只是浮出水面的冰山一角，在封闭社区中会发现更多的冰山部分。无症状病毒流行可能很常见，或许只能事后回顾才会被认识到。作为一个例子，将提及最近的7型腺病毒流行。文中还讨论了病毒以及在较小程度上宿主可能发生的变化，这些变化可能会改变个体感染的进程。
