Relationship of Viruses to Malignant Disease

Abstract

The discovery of viruses by Iwanowski¹in 1892 and its confirmation by Beijerinick²in 1899 led the two French investigators Borrel^3,4and Boss⁵to postulate that some tumors may be caused by viruses. The first report of a tumor-inducing virus was made in 1908 by Ellerman and Bang⁶who discovered the virus of chicken leukosis. Three years later, Rous^7,8discovered the viruses causing chicken sarcoma and osteochondrosarcoma. In 1932, Shope^9,10found that a fibroma in rabbits was caused by a virus, and discovered a virus causing infectious papilloma in rabbits. The following year, Furth¹¹classified chicken leukosis as erythroblastosis and myeloblastosis, and showed that it was transmissible by cell-free filtrates. In 1936, Bittner¹²made his fundamental discovery of the virus that induces mammary tumors in mice. Two years later, Lucké¹³demonstrated the viral etiology for a kidney carcinoma in the