| Date | 1898 |
| Author | Beijerinck |
| Contribution | a. Published ground-breaking report on infectivity of agent of Tobacco Mosaic Disease after bacteriological filtration. |
| Reference | Waterson |
| Notes | Considered the agent fluid, and possibly a water-soluble molecule that replicates when incorporated into host cell. His description of the unseen pathogen as a fluid caused confusion (and enabled Ivanowski to make some claim for priority) but in Beijerinck's time, a quarter century before the concept of macromolecules, everything was declared to be either particulate (corpuscular) or dissolved (molecules of low molecular weight). Because the filterable virus (old and new sense) could multiply in plant tissues, it could not be a chemical toxin. Work apparently done in 1897; first publication in 1998 in Dutch; German version in 1899. Lechevalier and Solotorovsky give lengthy quote from comprehensive paper of 1900. |
| Category | Causation |
| Pathogen Class | Viruses |
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