Botany · Ch 1 — Living World
Milestones in Virology
Milestones in Virology
The timeline of Virology traces how scientists gradually worked out that something smaller than bacteria, and stranger than ordinary microbes, was behind certain infections. It begins in 1796 with Edward Jenner's smallpox vaccination (long before viruses were understood at all), moves through Adolf Mayer (1886) showing that sap from a mosaic-diseased tobacco leaf could itself carry the infection, Dimitry Ivanowsky (1892) proving the infectious agent was smaller than any known bacterium, Beijerinck (1898) naming it a 'contagium vivum fluidum' (a living, fluid contagion), Twort (1915) and d'Herelle (1917) discovering that bacteria too could be infected by these agents (coining the term 'Bacteriophage'), W.M. Stanley (1935) achieving the landmark feat of crystallising a virus (TMV) for …
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1796 | Edward Jenner used vaccination for small pox |
| 1886 | Adolf Mayer demonstrated the infectious nature of Tobacco mosaic virus using sap of mosaic leaves |
| 1892 | Dimitry Ivanowsky proved that viruses are smaller than bacteria |
| 1898 | M.W. Beijerinck defined the infectious agent in tobacco leaves as 'Contagium vivum fluidum' |
| 1915 | F.W. Twort identified viral infection in Bacteria |
| 1917 | d'Herelle coined the term 'Bacteriophage' |