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The cause of the outbreak is unknown, and there is as yet no evidence of contagion. But the doctors who have made the diagnoses . . . are alerting

other physicians who treat large numbers of homosexual men to the problem in an effort to help identify more cases and to reduce the delay in

offering chemotherapy treatment.

A British medical journal, The Lancet, published a report on Kaposi's sarcoma in eight New York City patients on Sept. 19. But because of peer

review delays, America's most prestigious scientific journal, The New England Journal of Medicine, did not issue a report on the outbreak until

Dec. 10. The authors treated four men, one of whom developed both cancer and pneumonia. The findings were insightful, and despairing.

The reason for the appearance of these two unusual illnesses remains unclear. . . . It is likely that sexually active, young homosexual men are

frequently reinfected through exposure to semen and urine of sexual partners. Such reinfection -- before recovery from the cellular immunedysfunction induced by previous [viral] infection -- could conceivably lead to overwhelming immunodeficiency or Kaposi's sarcoma.

To date there has been no indication of spontaneous recovery of cellular immunocompetence in our surviving patients. All have continued to

have a severe wasting syndrome despite intensive supportive measures. . . .

The new disease had a nightmarish quality -- fungi grew around victims' fingernails, once handsome faces sagged with lesions. Some thought the

symptoms were caused by a bad batch of ''poppers'' -- nitrate inhalants, widely used for a quick high in gay bars and clubs. The writer Larry

Kramer issued a warning to the gay community in the Aug. 24 New York Native.

If I had written this a month ago, I would have used the figure ''40.'' If I had written this last week, I would have needed ''80.'' Today I must tell

you that 120 gay men in the United States -- most of them here in New York -- are suffering from an often lethal form of cancer called Kaposi's

sarcoma, or from a virulent form of pneumonia that may be associated with it. More than 30 have died.

The men who have been stricken don't appear to have done anything that many New York gay men haven't done at one time or another. We'reappalled that this is happening to them and terrified that it could happen to us. It's easy to become frightened that one of the many things we've

done or taken over the past years may be all that it takes for a cancer to grow from a tiny something-or-other that got in there who knows when

from doing who knows what. . . .

This is our disease and we must take care of each other and ourselves.

For the remainder of 1981, coverage of the outbreak languished in the mainstream press. Editors were reluctant to write about a virus that could

be spread sexually within a community that many readers regarded as offensive. Only when it became clear that nonhomosexuals were among

the sick did the major news outlets return to the story. The first Wall Street Journal article on the epidemic appeared on Feb. 25, 1982, under the

headline ''New, Often-Fatal Illness in Homosexuals Turns Up in Women, Heterosexual Males.''

A baffling and often deadly new illness, previously thought to be confined to male homosexuals, now has turned up among some women and

heterosexual men. . . . Scientists studying the illness say they can't yet predict how much a threat, if any, it poses to the general population. The

researchers don't know what causes the disease, how it is transmitted and what makes certain people susceptible to it.

For more than a year the epidemic officially remained unnamed. A patient in San Francisco was given a diagnosis of F.U.O.: fever of unknown

origin. Some scientists and journalists referred to K.S.O.I. (Kaposi's Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections) or GRID (Gay-Related Immune

Deficiency). A New York Magazine feature story termed it ''The Gay Plague.'' In September 1982, the C.D.C. finally put a name to it: Acquired

Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

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