Perhaps the first account of hepatitis occurred in the second century b.c., when Greek physicians described a mysterious and often fatal disease that caused inflammation of the liver. They noted that the skin of afflicted patients had a distinguishing yellow appearance, later called jaundice. A thousand years later, St. Zacharias (d.752) described a similar disease; and, between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, about 80 epidemics of jaundice occurred throughout the world. Today, it is known that hepatitis can cause a variety of other symptoms, including malaise, liver disease, gastrointestinal upset, liver cancer, and scarring of the liver (cirrhosis). When the liver becomes infected and inflamed, it is unable to perform its vital functions. This causes a reduction in the blood flow to the liver and subsequent cell death. Cirrhosis may follow.

Many types of hepatitis can be prevented, however. Alcoholic hepatitis is caused by an increase in the...