The Emperor's New Clothes Revisited, or Reflections on the Pathogenesis of Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever

Abstract

As most of you know, one of the duties of the President of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene specified by the by-laws is the presentation of an address at the annual meeting. I do not know what type of address those responsible for this provision had in mind, but a review of previous presidential addresses reveals a wide variety both of philosophical and scientific topics. Since I do not feel competent to address you on a philosophical subject, I have chosen to review a scientific topic which has been of interest to me during the past few years. In making this choice, I know that the subject matter will be of relatively little interest to those of you in other fields and for this I apologize. I shall illustrate later, however, that the topic I have chosen is especially appropriate for the site of our gathering this year and for the bicentennial which our joint meeting commemorates.