The woman wrote that although she is young, attractive and in love, her life has been destroyed by genital herpes, an incurable venereal infection that she is too ashamed to reveal to anyone, especially the man who loves and wants to marry her. She explained that she had contracted herpes during her one previous relationship with a man. She said the infected man had known that he had herpes but had neither told her nor done anything to protect her.

A decade ago, herpes sent a wave of panic through participants in the so-called sexual revolution. Now, in the wake of publicity about the AIDS epidemic, genital herpes is nearly forgotten but hardly gone. About 30 million Americans-16 percent of people between the ages of 15 and 74-are believed to harbor this contagious virus, which takes up lifelong residence in the body and emerges from time to time to produce painful blistering sores on and around the genitals.

Each year, many thousands of Americans join the unfortunate ranks of the infected. Most of them, like the young woman, are not promiscuous. The problem with herpes is that some infected people do not realize that they harbor the virus and can transmit it to others through sexual intercourse or oral sex. And the many who know they have herpes often do not realize that they can sometimes spread the virus even when they do not have a noticeable outbreak.