I found this to be interesting. The word (and concept) of a virus predates its actual discovery by over 500 years.
The English word “virus” comes from the Latin vīrus, which refers to poison and other noxious liquids. Vīrus comes from the same Indo-European root as Sanskrit viṣa, Avestan vīša, and Ancient Greek ἰός (iós), which all mean “poison”. The first attested use of “virus” in English appeared in 1398 in John Trevisa’s translation of Bartholomeus Anglicus’s De Proprietatibus Rerum. Virulent, from Latin virulentus (‘poisonous’), dates to c. 1400. A meaning of ‘agent that causes infectious disease’ is first recorded in 1728, long before the discovery of viruses by Dmitri Ivanovsky in 1892.
It passed through the bacteria filters! So small that it passes by the filters and it kills–poison, toxin. But wait, it can be diluted to lowest effective concentration, and then with addition of host it grows back to high concentration. What poison does that?
I found this to be interesting. The word (and concept) of a virus predates its actual discovery by over 500 years.
Removed by mod
So what about ‘Mastercard’?
Un-PC, that’s what!
I wonder what they’ll change the name to.
‘Bosspersoncard’
It passed through the bacteria filters! So small that it passes by the filters and it kills–poison, toxin. But wait, it can be diluted to lowest effective concentration, and then with addition of host it grows back to high concentration. What poison does that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Ivanovsky
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martinus_Beijerinck
I can’t find anything on the 1728 claim, but I remember hearing that Louis Pasteur coined the term while studying rabies in the 1880s!