title: The new epidemic.
abstract: Editor's note: From its first issue in 1900 through to the present day, AJN has unparalleled archives detailing nurses' work and lives over the last century. These articles not only chronicle nursing's growth as a profession within the context of the events of the day, but they also reveal prevailing societal attitudes about women, health care, and human rights. Today's nursing school curricula rarely include nursing's history, but it's a history worth knowing. To this end, From the AJN Archives will be a frequent column, containing articles selected to fit today's topics and times.This month's article, from the November 1982 issue, is the first AJN article published on AIDS. It was early in the epidemic; only 608 cases of Kaposi's sarcoma and opportunistic infections had been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-a mere trickle in the flood that was to come. Reading it now, aware of all we've learned since, we have a sense of how much we were fumbling around in the dark in those early days, searching for a cause and a cure, often going in wrong directions. The closest we had come to the true nature of the syndrome was an understanding that "life-style factors seem to be involved and the agent appears to be infectious." To read the complete article from our archives, go to http://bit.ly/1iswhZe.
authors.forename: Jeanne V
authors.initials: JV
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.forename: Grace C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Mellin
mesh_terms: D017088:AIDS-Related Opportunistic Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000266:history / Q000451:nursing; D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000266:history* / Q000451:nursing; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D058872:Epidemics / Q000266:history*; D005260:Female; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000266:history*; D012514:Sarcoma, Kaposi / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000266:history* / Q000451:nursing; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult