A Brief History Of Herpes

Infections of the herpes virus have been prevalent as early as ancient Greek times.  Hippocrates is known to have described the cutaneous spreading of herpes simplex lesions and scholars of Greek civilization define the greek word “herpes” to mean “to creep or crawl” in reference the spreading nature of the herpetic skin lesions.  In one of the most famous of all Shakespeare’s writings Queen Mab says “O’er ladies lips, who straight on kisses dream, which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.”  That from Romeo and Juliet.  Nonetheless, it was not until 1893 when Vidal recognized that human transmission of herpes simplex infection from one individual to another.

During the twentieth century, HSV research blossomed.  Histopathologic studies characterized the multinucleated giant cells associated with herpesvirus infection.  And in 1919, Lowenstein confirmed experimentally the infectious nature of HSV that Shakespeare had only suspected.  In the 1920's and 1930's, the natural history of HSV was widely studied and it was found that HSV not only infects the skin, but also the central nervous system.  In the 1930's, host immune responses to HSV were thoroughly examined and the property of HSV known as latency was characterized.  By the 1940's and 1950's, research abounded on the many diseases caused by HSV.  More recent research has focused on antiviral research, differences between HSV strains, and using HSV vectors for use in vaccines.

Varicella-Zoster Virus (VZV) also has a long recorded history. However, historical accounts often fail to distinguish between the poc marks caused by VZV and those caused by small pox.  It was only in the late eighteenth century that Heberden established a way to clinically differentiate between the two diseases.  In 1888, it was suggested by von Bokay that chickenpox and herpes zoster were due to the same causal agent.  It was not until Weller and Stoddard isolated virus both from chickenpox and zoster and compared the viruses that this connection was confirmed: chickenpox and herpes zoster were indeed due to the same virus!