Introductory

Abstract

There are few disciplines which in recent years have developed so rapidly and in so many different directions as the study of viruses and, particularly, of plant viruses. The subject is a border-line study, perhaps in more senses than one, involving the use of techniques belanging more properly to the physicist, the biochemist and the bacteriologist. With these recent advances in knowledge the subject has been invaded not only by the physical chemist, the biochemist and the statistician, but also by the crystallographer and the serologist. This makes it extremely difficult for the ordinary plant virus worker, who has probably had only a biological training, to follow his subject into the highly specialized and technical regions whither it is now tending. This then must be the excuse for any deficiencies in the writer’s attempts to present a comprehensive survey of the main aspects of modern plant virus research.