Dmitri Ivanovsky

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Dmitri Ivanovsky

| image = Ivanovsky.jpg

| caption = Ivanovsky, {{circa|1915}}

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1864|10|28|df=y}}

| birth_place = Nizy, Gdovsky Uyezd, Saint Petersburg Governorate, Russian Empire

| death_date = {{death date and age|1920|6|20|1864|10|28|df=y}}

| death_place = Rostov-on-Don, Russian SFSR

| nationality = Russian

| field = Virology

| alma_mater = St. Petersburg Imperial University

| doctoral_advisor = Andrei Famintsyn

| known_for = Discovery of viruses, Tobacco mosaic virus

| work_institution = St. Petersburg Imperial University
Imperial University of Warsaw
Saint Vladimir Imperial University of Kiev
Donskoy University

}}

Dmitri Iosifovich Ivanovsky (alternative spelling Dmitrii or Dmitry Iwanowski; {{langx|ru|Дми́трий Ио́сифович Ивано́вский}};{{efn|Дмитрій Іосифовичъ Ивановскій in Russian pre-revolutionary script.}} 28 October 1864 – 20 June 1920) was a Russian botanist, the co-discoverer of :viruses (1892), and one of the founders of virology.{{cite journal |last=Lechevalier |first=Hubert |year=1972 |title=Dmitri Iosifovich Ivanovski (1864–1920) |journal= Bacteriological Reviews |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=135–45 |publisher= American Society for Microbiology |location = Washington, D.C.|doi=10.1128/BR.36.2.135-145.1972 | issn = 0005-3678| pmid = 4557165 |pmc=408320}}{{cite journal |journal=Journal of Virology |date=August 1992 |volume=66 |issue=8 |pages=4629–31 |pmc=241285 |pmid=1629947 |title=One hundred years of virology |author=Lustig, A. |author2=Levine, A. J. |doi=10.1128/JVI.66.8.4629-4631.1992 }}{{cite journal | last1 = Bos| first1 = L. | year = 1995 | title = The Embryonic Beginning of Virology: Unbiased Thinking and Dogmatic Stagnation | journal = Archives of Virology | volume = 140 | issue = 3 | pages = 613–619 | issn = 0304-8608 | doi=10.1007/bf01718437| pmid = 7733832 | s2cid = 23685370 | doi-access = free }}{{cite book| last = Zaitlin| first = Milton|author-link=Milton Zaitlin | editor1-last = Kung| editor1-first = S. D.| editor2-last = Yang| editor2-first = S. F.| title = Discoveries in Plant Biology| year = 1998| publisher = World Publishing Co.| location = Hong Kong| isbn = 978-981-02-1313-8| pages = 105–110| chapter = The Discovery of the Causal Agent of the Tobacco Mosaic Disease| chapter-url = https://www.apsnet.org/edcenter/apsnetfeatures/Documents/1998/ZaitlinDiscoveryCausalAgentTobaccoMosaicVirus.pdf}}{{cite book|last=Sebastion|first=Anton|title=A dictionary of the history of science|publisher=Informa Health Care|location=Google Books Excerpt|year=2001|isbn=9781850704188|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gTXFN-8v95MC&q=Dmitry+Iosifovich+Ivanovsky&pg=PA267|access-date=24 October 2008|page=267}}

Life

File:The Soviet Union 1964 CPA 3118 stamp (Outstanding Soviet Physicians. Dmitri Ivanovsky (1864-1920), one of the founders of virology).jpgIvanovsky was born in the village of Nizy, Gdov Uyezd. He studied at the University of Saint Petersburg under Andrei Famintsyn in 1887, when he was sent to Ukraine and Bessarabia to investigate a tobacco disease causing great damage to plantations located there at the time. Three years later, he was assigned to look into a similar disease occurrence of tobacco plants, this time raging in the Crimea region. He discovered that both incidents of disease were caused by an extremely minuscule infectious agent, capable of permeating porcelain Pasteur-Chamberland filters, something which bacteria could never do. He described his findings in an article (1892){{cite journal | last = Iwanowski | first = D. | title = Über die Mosaikkrankheit der Tabakspflanze | trans-title = On the Mosaic Disease of the Tobacco Plant | journal = Bulletin Scientifique Publié Par l'Académie Impériale des Sciences de Saint-Pétersbourg / Nouvelle Serie III | volume = 35 | pages = 67–70 | location = St. Petersburg | year = 1892 | language = de, ru}} Translated into English in Johnson, J., Ed. (1942) Phytopathological classics (St. Paul, Minnesota: American Phytopathological Society) No. 7, pp. 27–-30. and a dissertation (1902).{{cite journal | last = Iwanowski | first = D. | title = Über die Mosaikkrankheit der Tabakspflanze | trans-title = On the Mosaic Disease of the Tobacco Plant | journal = Zeitschrift für Pflanzenkrankheiten und Pflanzenschutz | volume = 13 | pages = 1–41 | year = 1903 | language = de| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=iG0oAQAAIAAJ&pg=PR13}} Then he worked at the Imperial University of Warsaw and at Donskoy University in Rostov on Don.

In 1898, the Dutch microbiologist Martinus Beijerinck independently replicated Ivanovsky's experiments and became convinced that the filtered solution contained a new form of infectious agent, which he named virus. Beijerinck subsequently acknowledged Ivanovsky's priority in the discovery of the filterable, submicroscopic entity.