Bos L
DLO Research Institute for Plant Protection (IPO-DLO), Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 1999 Mar 29;354(1383):675-85. doi: 10.1098/rstb.1999.0420.
Beijerinck's entirely new concept, launched in 1898, of a filterable contagium vivum fluidum which multiplied in close association with the host's metabolism and was distributed in phloem vessels together with plant nutrients, did not match the then prevailing bacteriological germ theory. At the time, tools and concepts to handle such a new kind of agent (the viruses) were non-existent. Beijerinck's novel idea, therefore, did not revolutionize biological science or immediately alter human understanding of contagious diseases. That is how bacteriological dogma persisted, as voiced by Loeffler and Frosch when showing the filterability of an animal virus (1898), and especially by Ivanovsky who had already in 1892 detected filterability of the agent of tobacco mosaic but kept looking for a microbe and finally (1903) claimed its multiplication in an artificial medium. The dogma was also strongly advocated by Roux in 1903 when writing the first review on viruses, which he named 'so-called "invisible" microbes', unwittingly including the agent of bovine pleuropneumonia, only much later proved to be caused by a mycoplasma. In 1904, Baur was the first to advocate strongly the chemical view of viruses. But uncertainty about the true nature of viruses, with their similarities to enzymes and genes, continued until the 1930s when at long last tobacco mosaic virus particles were isolated as an enzyme-like protein (1935), soon to be better characterized as a nucleoprotein (1937). Physicochemical virus studies were a key element in triggering molecular biology which was to provide further means to reveal the true nature of viruses 'at the threshold of life'. Beijerinck's 1898 vision was not appreciated or verified during his lifetime. But Beijerinck already had a clear notion of the mechanism behind the phenomena he observed. Developments in virology and molecular biology since 1935 indicate how close Beijerinck (and even Mayer, Beijerinck's predecessor in research on tobacco mosaic) had been to the mark. The history of research on tobacco mosaic and the commitments of Mayer, Beijerinck and others demonstrate that progress in science is not only a matter of mere technology but of philosophy as well. Raemaekers' Mayer cartoon, inspired by Beijerinck, artistically represents the crucial question about the reliability of our images of reality, and about the scope of our technological interference with nature.
贝杰林克于1898年提出了全新的概念，即一种可过滤的活性流体传染原，它与宿主的新陈代谢紧密相关并在其中繁殖，且与植物养分一同分布在韧皮部导管中，这与当时盛行的细菌病菌理论并不相符。当时，处理这种新型病原体（病毒）的工具和概念并不存在。因此，贝杰林克的新奇想法并未彻底改变生物科学，也没有立即改变人类对传染病的认识。这就是细菌学教条得以延续的原因，就像勒夫勒和弗罗施在证明动物病毒的可过滤性时（1898年）所表达的那样，尤其是伊万诺夫斯基，他早在1892年就检测到了烟草花叶病原体的可过滤性，但一直在寻找一种微生物，最终（1903年）声称它能在人工培养基中繁殖。1903年，鲁在撰写第一篇关于病毒的综述时也大力倡导了这一教条，他将病毒命名为“所谓的‘隐形’微生物”，无意中包括了牛胸膜肺炎病原体，直到很久以后才证明它是由支原体引起的。1904年，鲍尔首次强烈主张病毒的化学观点。但是，由于病毒与酶和基因的相似性，关于病毒的真实性质的不确定性一直持续到20世纪30年代，直到最后烟草花叶病毒颗粒被分离为一种类似酶的蛋白质（1935年），很快又被更准确地鉴定为核蛋白（1937年）。病毒的物理化学研究是引发分子生物学的关键因素，分子生物学将提供进一步的手段来揭示病毒“在生命门槛上”的真实性质。贝杰林克1898年的观点在他有生之年并未得到认可或证实。但贝杰林克已经对他所观察到的现象背后的机制有了清晰的概念。自1935年以来病毒学和分子生物学的发展表明，贝杰林克（甚至还有迈尔，贝杰林克在烟草花叶研究方面的前辈）的观点是多么接近事实。烟草花叶的研究历史以及迈尔、贝杰林克等人的贡献表明，科学的进步不仅关乎单纯的技术，还关乎哲学。受贝杰林克启发，雷马克斯创作的迈尔漫画艺术地呈现了关于我们对现实的认知图像的可靠性以及我们对自然的技术干预范围的关键问题。
