Entries - Entry Category: Pathology - Starting with W

West Nile virus (WNV) is an arthropod-borne, positive-sense, single-stranded RNA flavivirus (family Flaviviridae, genus Flavivirus) that has emerged as a significant health risk for humans. WNV is one of several Japanese encephalitis antigenic serocomplex of viruses that also include Japanese encephalitis virus, Murray Valley encephalitis virus, St. Louis encephalitis virus, and some other flaviviruses. West Nile has also been associated with illness and death in a wide variety of North American reptiles, birds, and mammals. It was first recognized in Arkansas in 2002. WNV was first identified in 1937 in the West Nile District of the Republic of Uganda of eastern Africa. Prior to 1995, the last major human outbreak of WNV was in the 1950s in Israel. The ecology …

Well into the twentieth century, it was believed that all children had parasitic worms and that parents needed to treat this condition with patent or homemade medicines. These concoctions rid children of such intestinal parasites as roundworms (Ascariasis), threadworms (Trichuris), and tapeworms (Taenia solium), some of which also went by the colloquial names of pinworms and seatworms. Worm infestations, it was believed, could cause death. This is borne out by the census’s four mortality schedules (1850–1880). In these, “worms” and “worm fever” were listed as the causes of some children’s deaths, the majority occurring during the warm months of July through October. Some of these children may have died from the debilitating effects of worms or by being overdosed with …