Читать книгу Principles of Virology - Jane Flint, S. Jane Flint - Страница 50

As new viruses were being discovered and studied by electron microscopy, the virus world was seen to be a veritable zoo of particles with different sizes, shapes, and compositions. With no standard rules for naming isolates, the viral lexicon was, and still is, idiosyncratic (Box 1.9). Constructing a rational scheme by which these agents could be classified became a subject of colorful and quite heated controversy. A traditionalist camp argued that it was impossible to infer, from the known properties of viruses, anything about their evolutionary origin or their relationships to one another—the major goal of classical taxonomy. Others maintained that despite such limitations, there were significant practical advantages in grouping viruses with similar properties. A major sticking point, however, was finding agreement on which properties should be considered most important in constructing a scheme for virus classification.