• DOI:10.1007/BF01718437
• Corpus ID: 23685370

The embryonic beginning of virology: unbiased thinking and dogmatic stagnation

@article{Bos2005TheEB,
  title={The embryonic beginning of virology: unbiased thinking and dogmatic stagnation},
  author={L. Bos},
  journal={Archives of Virology},
  year={2005},
  volume={140},
  pages={613-619}
}

• L. Bos
• Published 2005
• Art
• Archives of Virology

Occasions, such as the recent appearance of the Encyclopedia of Virology, provide an opportunity to reconsider the discipline's roots and to critically reexamine the past. In plant pathology, Mayer [20], Ivanovsky [9] and Beijerinck [ 1] have, for their classical investigations on tobacco mosaic published between 1886 and 1898, for long been considered to have set the stage for virology as a new discipline, and to have done so together [12]. However, a minireview on "One Hundred Years of Virology" that was published in 1992 [ 18] fixed the beginning of virology to 1892, and claimed Ivanovsky's role "as the father of the new science of Virology". The review must have served as a prelim to the "Foreword: I00 Years of Virology", published two years later in the new Encyclopedia of Virology [17]. The foreword affirmed Ivanovsky's "priority to the discovery of viruses" and his keyrole in the history of the science covered by the encyclopedia, and hailed this exemplary ''pioneering spirit". Since a number of data conflict with historicaI fact, a 'letter' on the matter has recently been submitted and meanwhile accepted for publication [5], and the present article now provides some further documentation.