Beijerinck's work on tobacco mosaic virus: historical context and legacy

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.