Mortimer P P
Hepatitis and Retrovirus Laboratory, Virus Reference Division, London, UK.
Genitourin Med. 1995 Apr;71(2):109-19. doi: 10.1136/sti.71.2.109.
Soon after its introduction in 1910, intravenous arsphenamine treatment for syphilis was found to be complicated by jaundice. The underlying cause, unsterile syringes and needles, was eventually recognised in the early 1940s, mainly through the efforts of British Army investigators. The infection most often transmitted was probably hepatitis B virus (HBV), but the high mortality in a few of the outbreaks of arsphenamine jaundice suggests that variants of HBV, or other hepatitis viruses, were sometimes involved. Fifty years later, at a time when there are estimated to be over three hundred million carriers of HBV in the world and probably at least as many hepatitis C virus carriers, and when the World Health Organisation estimates that there have been 17 million infections with human immunodeficiency virus, the lessons learnt around 1945 about the need to use sterile instruments and needles for all injections and venepunctures remain highly pertinent.
1910年引入静脉注射胂凡纳明治疗梅毒后不久，人们发现该治疗会并发黄疸。其根本原因——注射器和针头未消毒，最终在20世纪40年代初被认识到，这主要归功于英国军队调查人员的努力。最常传播的感染可能是乙型肝炎病毒（HBV），但在胂凡纳明黄疸的几次暴发中出现的高死亡率表明，有时涉及HBV的变异体或其他肝炎病毒。五十年后的今天，据估计世界上有超过三亿HBV携带者，丙型肝炎病毒携带者数量可能至少与之相当，而且世界卫生组织估计已有1700万人感染人类免疫缺陷病毒，1945年左右吸取的关于所有注射和静脉穿刺都需要使用无菌器械和针头的教训仍然极为相关。
