Dmitry Iosifovich Ivanovsky |
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Young scientists presented the results of their research in an article published in 1889 in the journal "Agriculture and Forestry".
One of the two students who studied tobacco diseases was Dmitry Iosifovich Ivanovsky. He was born on October 28, 1864 in the village of Niz, Gdovsk district, Petersburg province.
What happened next? After several years of work, the dissertation "On two diseases of tobacco plants" was born, and Ivanovsky became a candidate of natural sciences. He is offered to stay at the university to prepare for a professorship. At the request of A.N. Beketov and A.S.Faminitsyn, the young scientist was assigned a scholarship from special faculty funds - an exceptional phenomenon at that time. But soon Ivanovsky received the position of a laboratory assistant in the botanical laboratory newly organized by Academician Faminitsyn and gladly refused the scholarship.
A few years after the discovery of the "special microbe", the same phenomenon was found for the causative agent of foot and mouth disease, a dangerous animal disease. Ivanovsky did not know that he had discovered a new world of living things, and did not even give them a name. This was done a few years later by M. Beijerinck, who proposed the term "virus". In 1903, D.I.Ivanovsky defended his dissertation - the result of his work on tobacco mosaic and became a doctor of botany.
Life does not stand still. Generations of scientists have found new forms of viruses, studied their structure and properties, a new science was born - virology. The invention of the electron microscope expanded new horizons for the study of viruses. It became possible to see and measure them, isolate genetic carriers from them, and much more. The importance of the discovery of viruses can hardly be overestimated. And we must pay tribute to the scientist who first opened the window to this wonderful world. Undoubtedly, the discovery of viruses is the most significant achievement of D.I. Ivanovsky, but one cannot but mention other works of the scientist: the effect of oxygen on alcoholic fermentation in yeast, the study of the state of chlorophyll in plants, its resistance to light, the importance of xanthophyll and carotene (pigments also involved in photosynthesis and, probably, playing the role of light filters that protect some plant enzymes from destruction). Ivanovsky's works on soil zoology, the role of soil bacteria in increasing soil fertility, and many others are known. For a number of years Dmitry Iosifovich worked on a textbook for universities "Plant Physiology", many of the provisions of which have not lost their relevance today. A. V. Surov |
It was in 1887. Two students of St. Petersburg University, at the suggestion of the famous botanist-geographer A. N. Beketov, went to Ukraine and Bessarabia to study the tobacco disease widespread at that time, which caused enormous damage to agriculture. Young naturalists got down to business with enthusiasm. They managed to establish the existence of two tobacco diseases at once. One of them - hazel-grouse, an infectious disease, was treated simply: by raising the culture of agriculture, by correct crop rotation. The reason for another - jaundice - was not identified then.
It was this student work that became the first brick in the foundation of a new science - virology. The science of viruses, representatives of a special kingdom of living nature, organisms capable of parasitizing on all living objects, from bacteria to humans. Now we already know a lot about the structure of viruses, their properties, with many, although not all, viral diseases, we have learned to fight. Viruses have become objects of molecular biology, they are used in the study of the genetic functions of nucleic acids, the genetic code, they are used in works on genetic engineering, carcinogenesis. Many scientists are now working on these problems, but at that time ...
In 1883 he was a student of the natural history department of the physics and mathematics faculty of St. Petersburg University. Ivanovsky was especially fascinated by the physiology and anatomy of plants. A. N. Beketov, Chairman of the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists, drew attention to the original approaches used by the young Ivanovsky in setting scientific problems in solving scientific problems. He invited Ivanovsky and V.V. Polovtsev to make
DI Ivanovsky continues, already alone, to investigate the cause of tobacco mosaic disease. He examines the affected leaves under a microscope, introduces the extract of the juice of diseased plants to healthy ones, sets up more and more laboratory experiments. It has been proven that mosaic disease is contagious and the pathogen is in the sap of diseased plants. But it was not possible to isolate the pathogen. It was not visible under a microscope, and it was impossible to obtain a culture of the "infectious origin" on nutrient media. With the help of bacterial filters recently invented by Pasteur and Chamberlain, Ivanovsky shows that an unknown pathogen passes through them without changing its properties. Hence, the scientist decides, the infectious principle is much smaller than all known bacteria. It becomes clear how to deal with this disease. It is necessary to immediately destroy all diseased plants, and if there are too many of them, then sow the entire field with another crop (after all, the causative agent of tobacco mosaic affects only tobacco). The practical problem was solved. But the work is not over yet - after all, the pathogen has not been found.However, the scientist was able to continue his research only six years later, having already defended his master's thesis "Research on alcoholic fermentation", which played an important role in the further development of ideas about the processes of respiration and fermentation. Having become a privat-docent after defending his thesis, Ivanovsky returns to the study of tobacco disease. Experiments, experiments, experiments again. The scientist proves that the pathogen has corpuscularity, that is, certain dimensions. This is not just a poison that forms in diseased plants, it is a living organism capable of reproducing itself. All this seems simple now, when we glance at the pages of a scientist's life. But how many years of hard work, sleepless nights, joys and disappointments are behind this!
Ivanovsky is an extraordinary professor at the Department of Plant Anatomy and Physiology at the University of Warsaw. During the First World War, the university was transferred to Rostov-on-Don, where he continued his scientific and pedagogical work until his death. Dmitry Iosifovich died on June 20, 1920.
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