Abstract
THE present time is ripe for a general review of the problems of virus diseases elucidated during the last decade, and Dr. Kenneth Smith has recognized the opportunity by writing this volume. He is an accepted authority on plant viruses, but this latest work does not confine its allegiance to the plant kingdom. It is a conspectus of virus phenomena, and draws authoritative illustrations with equal facility from animal and plant diseases. One good effect of this is to show the essential similarity of virus upon both types of host; a worker in plant viruses investigates the same principles which present themselves from the animal side. The first part of the volume discusses the nature of virus; how it was discovered, how it is studied, and what is its nature. Part 2, “The Virus in Action”, discusses methods of infection and the action of virus upon the living cell. It is this section, and that which outlines a range of the more important virus diseases, which justify the volume's sub-title “Life's Enemy”. A chapter on control of these maladies is also added, and Dr. Smith's specialist studies of the entomological implications of virus diseases make fascinating reading, for the relations of a virus with its insect vector have a tantalizing complexity.
The Virus
Life's Enemy. By Kenneth M. Smith. (Cambridge Library of Modern Science.) Pp. viii + 176 + 9 plates. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1940.) 7s. 6d. et.
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GRAINGER, J. The Virus. Nature 146, 602–603 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/146602a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/146602a0
