A return to Conybeare.

The chapter on infectious diseases in Conybeare's Textbook of Medicine is reviewed 40 years after the author studied it as a medical student. The sulphonamides were then in general use, penicillin had recently been introduced and there were high hopes for the development of other chemotherapeutic substances. Congenital defects had recently been described in babies born to mothers who contracted rubella in early pregnancy. The varicella-zoster virus had not yet been isolated, chloramphenicol was not available for treating typhoid fever and the cause of infectious mononucleosis was unknown - but in many diseases little has changed. Modern medicine has produced a new spectrum of disease, opportunistic infections, and also a host of resistant organisms.