Soviet Doctor Discovers Hepatitis E

In the 1980s, a Soviet physician investigating a mysterious hepatitis outbreak among soldiers in Uzbekistan suspected it was not hepatitis A. To prove it, he deliberately ingested fecal samples from 22 infected soldiers and waited. Thirty-six days later, he developed hepatitis himself and then had his stool examined under an electron microscope. The images revealed a new pathogen, now known as the hepatitis E virus.

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