The Importance of Coxsackie Viruses in Human Disease, Particularly Herpangina and Epidemic Pleurodynia

Abstract

VIRUS infection" is possibly the diagnosis most frequently made by physicians today. It is generally supposed that this term includes a large proportion of the unclassified minor infectious diseases. The agents that cause these so-called "minor diseases" appear to have a very special talent — namely, an ability to preserve the human subject for innumerable subsequent attacks of similar illnesses. Because they represent more subtle categories of human parasites, they do not attract attention by destroying their hosts as do the so-called "major" but more easily controlled disease agents. Thus in the biologic sense they are far more successful parasites . . .