Tobacco Mosaic Virus · The Medicine Chest

Title

Tobacco Mosaic Virus

Is Part Of

Biological Sciences See all items with this value

History See all items with this value

Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Research See all items with this value

Description

During the late 19th century, tobacco farmers observed a strange occurrence on the leaves of their tobacco plants. A mosaic pattern of light and dark green (or yellow and green, in some instances) appeared on the leaves of their crops, the presence of which signalled the steady decline in the plant’s growth. Because of the lucrative nature of the industry, finding a treatment for this seemingly infectious disease became a priority, with many laboratories working to isolate the cause. Bacteria were recognised as the causative agents of many infectious diseases of plants and animals, including humans, in the second half of the 19th century – and the technique of filtration was developed to separate infectious agents from extracts or exudates in order to study these microbes. It was whilst utilising this technique that Dmitri Ivanovski, a Russian microbiologist working in the Crimea in 1890, made a surprising discovery. Using the Chamberland–filter made from porcelain and designed to trap ordinary bacteria, Ivanovsky discovered that the filtered sap from the diseased plants could continue to transfer the infection to healthy plants – an occurrence he attributed to an agent which must be an exceedingly small parasitic microorganism, invisible even under great magnification. It would take another 45 years before the visualisation of this subcellular entity would be formulated with the help of an electron microscope, but Ivanovksy, along with the Dutch botanist M.W. Beijerinck, who also and independently, isolated these microbes in his laboratory in 1898, are generally credited for the discovery of viruses. The disease which infected the tobacco plants would be aptly called the Tobacco Mosaic Virus, and its identification would signal the initiation of a field of study known as virology.

Curriculum

Philosophia Botanica See all items with this value

url

https://chromoscience.com/the-viral-structures/

Creator

Dmitri Ivanovsky See all items with this value

M.W. Beijerinck See all items with this value

Resonances

virus See all items with this value

Chamberlain filter See all items with this value

porcelain See all items with this value

office See all items with this value

Old Medical School See all items with this value

microbiology See all items with this value

bacteria See all items with this value

invisible See all items with this value

filter See all items with this value

sap See all items with this value

mosaic See all items with this value

farm See all items with this value

disease See all items with this value

magnification See all items with this value

parasitic See all items with this value

discovery See all items with this value

visualisation See all items with this value

Tulipmania See all items with this value

Tobacco Mosaic Virus See all items with this value

cancer See all items with this value

lungs See all items with this value

breath See all items with this value

pattern recognition See all items with this value

microbes See all items with this value

laboratory See all items with this value

medicine chest See all items with this value

pandemic See all items with this value

Covid-19 See all items with this value

botany See all items with this value

Ivanovski See all items with this value

Crimea See all items with this value

Florence Nightingale See all items with this value

Turkey See all items with this value

soldier See all items with this value

Dmitri Ivanovsky See all items with this value

M.W. Beijerinck See all items with this value

virology See all items with this value

Jane Yeats See all items with this value

tobacco See all items with this value

Type

Image

Item sets

Curricula

Philosophia Botanica

Site pages

Materials

Lesson plan example