In 1898 Dmitri Ivanovski a Russian botanist, and Martinus Beijernick, a Dutch microbiologist and botanist, were independently given credit for the discovery of tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). The porcelain Chamberland filter apparatus use in the day excluded bacteria, and the resultant “poison” solution was said to contain “filterable virus“. Today this is deemed the begining of viruses as infectious agents smaller that bacteria. [1]
