The very word ‘virus’ began as a contradiction. We inherited from the Roman Empire, where it meant, at once, the venom of a snake or the semen of a man. Creation and destruction in one word.
Over the centuries, ‘virus’ took on another meaning: it signified any contagious substance that could spread disease.
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‘Virus’ only began to take on its modern meaning as the nineteenth century came to a close, thanks to an agricultural catastrophe [in the Netherlands].