What scientist is responsible for first discovering viruses (specifically, tobacco mosaic virus)…even though he called it a small bacteria or spore?
Dimitri Ivanovski
The scientist responsible for first discovering viruses is Dmitri Ivanovsky, a Russian botanist. He was the first to conduct experiments on the tobacco mosaic disease in the late 1800s. Dmitri Ivanovsky observed that the disease could spread from one plant to another, even isolating the extract from diseased plants. Despite not being able to isolate these agents, Dmitri Ivanovsky noticed that the tobacco mosaic disease could pass through porcelain filters that were small enough to trap bacteria. He then inferred that there must be something smaller than bacteria that was causing this disease. He referred to these invisible agents as “soluble living bacteria,” but later realized that his findings represented a new type of infectious agent, later known as the virus.
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