80 years ago today: MRC researchers discover viral cause of flu | Michael Bresalier

Forget bird flu and swine flu, it was ferret flu and The Field magazine that helped MRC scientists discover the influenza virus, after eleven years of dedicated research.In the spring of 1933 a team of Medical Research Council (MRC) staff gathered nasal fluids and throat garglings from a sick researcher, filtered them, and dripped them into ferrets. Within forty-eight hours the ferrets would start sneezing and displaying signs of an influenza-like disease. This research formed the basis of an extraordinarily important Lancet paper by Wilson Smith, Christopher H Andrewes and Patrick Laidlaw, published on 8 July 1933, identifying a 'virus' as the primary causative agent for influenza. This was no serendipitous finding, but the result of a sustained campaign of funding and research.The 1918-9...

Source: http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=7408584&cid=u_0_58_f&fid=36473&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.guardian.co.uk%2Fscience%2Fthe-h-word%2F2013%2Fjul%2F08%2Finfluenza-virus-discovery-mrc-nimr

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