Person of the Year: A Photo History

For its 1996 Man of the Year, TIME chose a doctor who gives hope to millions in the daunting fight against AIDS. Early in his medical career, Dr. Ho saw patients with a rare and puzzling array of infections. Although nobody knew it then, these were some of the earliest known cases of AIDS.

Dr. Ho suspected from the beginning that the ailment was viral in nature, and his efforts to isolate the virus made him the fourth person in the world to succeed in doing so. In the years following, he divided his talents among treating patients, teaching at several medical schools and research. Characteristically modest and quick to share credit with his associates, Dr. David Ho continues, as TIME said in 1996, to lay "forth clearly and succinctly some of the boldest yet most cogent hypotheses in the epic campaign against HIV."

Researched by Joan Levinstein, the Time Inc. Research Center