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Who Discovered the Virus?
Viruses were first seen by a Scotch physician by the name of Robert Buist in
an experiment in which he was examening cells taken from skin eruptions of
small pox patients when he noticed certian particles which weren't part of
the healthy cell, what he called "inclusion bodies."
Is a Virus Alive?
Alive? Relative to what?
Lets compare it to a cell! Relative to any other living thing a virus is one
big question mark. Scientists are still trying to figure out if a virus is
nothing more then a biological machine or a living entity.
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Many viruses are smaller
then the wave length of light and thus can't been seen with an ordinary micro
light microscope. So electron microscopes are used by directing a beam of
electrons, whose wavelength is much smaller then the dimensions of the virus
and therefor can magnify them to several hundred thousand times. But viruses
vary considerably in size, between limits of 10 to 200 millimicrons.
(1 inch = 2.5 x 10^7 millimicrons)
