Virus filtrans

[Jan Bosselaers]

Geoff Read wrote:
>
> Curtis Clark:
> > Another post supported what I have heard (and unfortunately have no
> > reference for): that "virus" is a coined English word, from "virulent",
> > and that the homonymy with the Latin is convenient, but not intended.
>
> I'm not sure you can separate the origins of virulent and virus, but no
> matter. Virus the disease agent does come from the Latin word for
> poison. In 1898 one Professor Beijerinck of Delft, working on tobacco
> disease, extracted an infectious clear 'liquid'  which he named a virus in
> the sense of a poison (from Gordon Rattray Taylor's "The Science of
> Life"). This was the tobacco mosaic virus.

Indeed, and in full this "poison" was named "virus filtrans" because it
could pass through filters which would stop bacteria from passing. So
"virus" was meant to be a Latin word in the beginning.

Best wishes,

Jan
--------------------------------------------------------------
Jan Bosselaers
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