Symposium on world medicine. Arthropodborne viral encephalitis.

ease syndromes form a group that might be considered the epidemiologist's dream. Epi¬ demiologic studies of this group require the teamwork and knowledge of the epidemiologist, agriculturalist, sanitary engineer, ornithologist, mammologist, veterinarian, virologist, immunologist, and clinician. In keeping with the theme of this symposium I will emphasize the worldwide aspects of the encephaiitides. The scope will be broad rather than specific. I will discuss in general the range of clinical syndromes, the spectrum of vectors, the spectrum of epidemiologic patterns, deter¬ minants of geographic distribution patterns, currently recognized world distribution, the number of different viruses, and, briefly, preven¬ tion and control. The term "arthropod-borne viral encephali¬ tis" was introduced by Dr. William C. Reeves and myself many years ago to replace what we considered less suitable terms such as epidemic encephalitis, summer encephalitis, and ar¬ thropod-borne encephalitis. Recently I sug¬ gested a further change since many related viruses in the group produce diseases other than encephalitis and possibly all are zoonoses, with man the occasional and accidental host in the primary biological cycle of the virus. This new term is the arthropod-borne viral zoonoses. To shorten this, several abbreviations have been suggested, the most common being "arbor" for arthropod-borne, but I prefer "arbo" since "arbor" is a Latin word and sug-