Martinus Willem Beijerinck (, 16 March 1851 – 1 January 1931) was a Dutch microbiologist and

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

who was one of the founders of

virology Virology is the scientific study of biological viruses. It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of infection and exploitation of host cells for reproduction, the ...

and

environmental microbiology A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...

. He is credited with the discovery of

viruses A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's ...

, which he called "''

contagium vivum fluidum ''Contagium vivum fluidum'' (Latin: "contagious living fluid") was a phrase first used to describe a virus, and underlined its ability to slip through the finest-mesh filters then available, giving it almost liquid properties. Martinus Beijerinck ...

''".

Life

Early life and education

Born in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

, Beijerinck studied at the Technical School of Delft, where he was awarded the degree of Chemical Engineer in 1872. He obtained his Doctor of Science degree from the University of Leiden in 1877. At the time, Delft, then a Polytechnic, did not have the right to confer doctorates, so Leiden did this for them. He became a teacher in microbiology at the Agricultural School in Wageningen (now Wageningen University) and later at the ''Polytechnische Hogeschool Delft'' (Delft Polytechnic, currently Delft University of Technology) (from 1895). He established the Delft School of Microbiology. His studies of agricultural and industrial microbiology yielded fundamental discoveries in the field of

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary ...

. His achievements have been perhaps unfairly overshadowed by those of his contemporaries, Robert Koch and

Louis Pasteur Louis Pasteur (, ; 27 December 1822 – 28 September 1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization, the latter of which was named afte ...

, because unlike them, Beijerinck never studied human disease. In 1877, he wrote his first notable research paper, discussing

plant galls Galls (from the Latin , 'oak-apple') or ''cecidia'' (from the Greek , anything gushing out) are a kind of swelling growth on the external tissues of plants, fungi, or animals. Plant galls are abnormal outgrowths of plant tissues, similar to ...

. The paper later became the basis for his doctoral dissertation. In 1885 he became a member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

Scientific career

He is considered one of the founders of

. In 1898, he published results on the filtration experiments demonstrating that tobacco mosaic disease is caused by an infectious agent smaller than a

bacterium Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were am ...

. His results were in accordance with the similar observation made by Dmitri Ivanovsky in 1892. Like Ivanovsky before him and

Adolf Mayer Adolf Eduard Mayer (9 August 184325 December 1942) was a German Agricultural chemistry, agricultural chemist whose work on Tobacco mosaic virus, tobacco mosaic disease played an important role in the discovery of tobacco mosaic virus and viruses ...

, predecessor at Wageningen, Beijerinck could not culture the filterable infectious agent; however, he concluded that the agent can replicate and multiply in living plants. He named the new

pathogen In biology, a pathogen ( el, πάθος, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a g ...

virus A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsk ...

'' to indicate its non-bacterial nature. Beijerinck asserted that the virus was somewhat liquid in nature, calling it "''

''" (contagious living fluid). It was not until the first crystals of the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) obtained by Wendell Stanley in 1935, the first electron micrographs of TMV produced in 1939 and the first X-ray crystallographic analysis of TMV performed in 1941 proved that the virus was particulate.

Nitrogen fixation Nitrogen fixation is a chemical process by which molecular nitrogen (), with a strong triple covalent bond, in the air is converted into ammonia () or related nitrogenous compounds, typically in soil or aquatic systems but also in industry. Atmo ...

, the process by which diatomic

nitrogen Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at se ...

gas is converted to

ammonium The ammonium cation is a positively-charged polyatomic ion with the chemical formula or . It is formed by the protonation of ammonia (). Ammonium is also a general name for positively charged or protonated substituted amines and quaterna ...

ions and becomes available to plants, was also investigated by Beijerinck. Bacteria perform nitrogen fixation, dwelling inside root nodules of certain plants ( legumes). In addition to having discovered a biochemical reaction vital to

soil fertility Soil fertility refers to the ability of soil to sustain agricultural plant growth, i.e. to provide plant habitat and result in sustained and consistent yields of high quality.

and

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...

, Beijerinck revealed this archetypical example of

symbiosis Symbiosis (from Greek , , "living together", from , , "together", and , bíōsis, "living") is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two different biological organisms, be it mutualistic, commensalistic, or para ...

between plants and

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were am ...

. Beijerinck discovered the phenomenon of bacterial sulfate reduction, a form of

anaerobic respiration Anaerobic respiration is respiration using electron acceptors other than molecular oxygen (O2). Although oxygen is not the final electron acceptor, the process still uses a respiratory electron transport chain. In aerobic organisms undergoing r ...

. He learned bacteria could use sulfate as a terminal electron acceptor, instead of oxygen. This discovery has had an important impact on our current understanding of

biogeochemical cycles A biogeochemical cycle (or more generally a cycle of matter) is the pathway by which a chemical substance cycles (is turned over or moves through) the biotic and the abiotic compartments of Earth. The biotic compartment is the biosphere and the ...

. ''Spirillum desulfuricans'', now known as '' Desulfovibrio desulfuricans'', the first known sulfate-reducing bacterium, was isolated and described by Beijerinck. Beijerinck invented the

enrichment culture Enrichment culture is the use of certain growth media to favor the growth of a particular microorganism over others, enriching a sample for the microorganism of interest. This is generally done by introducing nutrients or environmental conditions th ...

, a fundamental method of studying

microbe A microorganism, or microbe,, ''mikros'', "small") and ''organism'' from the el, ὀργανισμός, ''organismós'', "organism"). It is usually written as a single word but is sometimes hyphenated (''micro-organism''), especially in olde ...

s from the environment. He is often incorrectly credited with framing the microbial ecology idea that "everything is everywhere, but, the environment selects", which was stated by

Lourens Baas Becking Lourens Gerhard Marinus Baas Becking (4 January 1895 in Deventer – 6 January 1963 in Canberra, Australia) was a Dutch botanist and microbiologist. He is known for the Baas Becking hypothesis, which he originally formulated as ''"Everything ...

Personal life

Beijerinck was a socially eccentric figure. He was verbally abusive to students, never married, and had few professional collaborations. He was also known for his

ascetic Asceticism (; from the el, ἄσκησις, áskesis, exercise', 'training) is a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from sensual pleasures, often for the purpose of pursuing spiritual goals. Ascetics may withdraw from the world for their p ...

lifestyle and his view of science and marriage being incompatible. His low popularity with his students and their parents periodically depressed him, as he very much loved spreading his enthusiasm for biology in the classroom. After his retirement at the Delft School of Microbiology in 1921, at age 70, he moved to

Gorssel Gorssel is a village in the municipality of Lochem, province of Gelderland, Netherlands. It is located about 9 km (5.6 mi) southeast of the city centre of Deventer, Overijssel. In 2015, it had a population of 4,043. The microbiologist and botanis ...

where he lived for the rest of his life, together with his two sisters.

Recognition

Beijerinckia (a genus of bacteria), Beijerinckiaceae (a family of Hyphomicrobiales), and Beijerinck crater are named after him. The M.W. Beijerinck Virology Prize (''M.W. Beijerinck Virologie Prijs'') is awarded in his honor.

References

External links

*
Beijerinck and the Delft School of Microbiology
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beijerinck, Martinus 1851 births 1931 deaths Corresponding Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1917–1925) Corresponding Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Delft University of Technology alumni Delft University of Technology faculty Dutch microbiologists 19th-century Dutch botanists 20th-century Dutch botanists Dutch phytopathologists Environmental microbiology Foreign Members of the Royal Society Honorary Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Leeuwenhoek Medal winners Leiden University alumni Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Nitrogen cycle Scientists from Amsterdam Dutch soil scientists Wageningen University and Research faculty