Jaundice historical perspective

Jaundice comes from the French word jaune, meaning yellow. It was once believed persons suffering from the medical condition jaundice saw everything as yellow, but this is not true. In 1885, Luhrman noted jaundice as an adverse effect of vaccination. In 1935, A. O. Whipple, an American surgeon first described obstructive jaundice. Many viruses that cause hepatitis and jaundice was discovered in 1950-2000.

• Jaundice comes from the French word jaune in circa 1300 AD, meaning yellow. And the word ‘jaunis’ itself is derived from an earlier French word ‘jalnice’.^[1]
• In 1885, Luhrman noted jaundice as an adverse effect of vaccination.^[2]

• In 1908, McDonald suggested that jaundice may be caused by an agent much smaller than a bacterium.^[3]
• In 1935, A. O. Whipple, an American surgeon first described obstructive jaundice.^[4]
• During WWII, approximately 16 million people died as a consequence of hepatitis. This led to a lot of research on vaccines and different type of hepatitis.^[5][6]
• In 1947, Clinicians divided hepatitis into two types including epidemic/infectious hepatitis and serum hepatitis (SH). Epidemic hepatitis had a short incubation period, serum hepatitis had long incubation period.^[6]
• In 1953, World Health Organization (WHO) suggested usage of the terms hepatitis A for infectious hepatitis and hepatitis B for serum hepatitis.^[6]
• During 1950-1970, an epidemic of viral hepatitis took place in China, India and the adjoining region. This led to the discovery of hepatitis E virus.^[2]
• In 1974, a third virus was discovered that causes infectious hepatitis, other than hepatitis A virus (HAV) and hepatitis B virus (HBV). It was named non-A, non-B hepatitis (NANBH).^[7]
• In 1977, hepatitis D virus was discovered.^[2]
• In 1995, the GB virus-C was discovered that targets liver.^[8]
• In 1997, transfusion-transmitted virus (TTV) was discovered in patient with non A-B-C-G hepatitis.^[9]

• In 1935, A. O. Whipple invented the concept of preoperative biliary drainage by the procedure of staged pancreatoduodenectomy.^[4]
• Since 1982, a vaccine against hepatitis B has been available.^[10]
• In 1992, the Global Advisory Group to the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that hepatitis B vaccine be incorporated into national immunization programs in all countries by 1997.^[11]
• In 1986 first effort to develop interferon-alpha (IFN-a) treatment against HCV was initiated by Jay Houston Hoofnagle.^[12]
• The drug was finally approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for HCV treatment in 1991.^[13]
• In 1997 was first used to treat HCV.^[13]
• In 1998 The FDA approved the use of combination therapy of interferon alpha and ribavirin.^[13]
• Newer HCV protease inhibitors, such as telepravir, were developed in 2007.^[13]

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