VOL. 7: 129 (1997)

What Virology Has Taught Us

In a rapidly moving, sophisticated society, where infor-mation technology delivers new facts at electronicspeed, it may be difficult to imagine what could belearned from the pages of dusty tomes published manydecades ago. Articles reprinted in this journal as ‘ClassicPapers’ have illustrated that this assumption may not beaccurate. Selected articles may, indeed, illuminate aspectsor principles of virology which have been forgotten or,perhaps, not learned initially during our training. Alter-natively, we may have learned the general conclusionbut be unaware of the original data which led to itsacceptance.Although investigators from past decades lacked our

current laboratory techniques and facilities, they hadmore of another ingredient necessary for research; time tocogitate about the interpretation and significance of theirobservations. When reviewing such articles from a con-temporary perspective, it is often striking how muchunderstanding the investigators could glean from theirrudimentary experimental approaches. It is also surprisingto see how much latitude editors gave authors in terms ofspace to describe their results in exhaustive detail, as wellas freedom to speculate widely (many comments would

today be dismissed by reviewers as ‘Conclusions notsupported by the data presented’).We will continue to publish those papers which

illustrate principles or concepts in virology which are stillrelevant today. In addition, we will publish ‘ClassicPapers’ whose experiments were performed by virolo-gists, but whose main conclusions illuminated an import-ant general aspect of science or medicine. Articles in thiscategory might be termed ‘What virology has taught us’.For example, a classic paper in this issue concerns a reportfrom nearly a century ago which described the nowfamiliar dermatomes. This important information wasprovided by the meticulous study of cases of herpeszoster using a clinicopathological study design. Theinformation acquired from this study is primarily usednow by neurologists, but was generated from the studyof a virus infection. In the same vein, we will publisharticles which, through the study of viruses, definedimportant principles now employed on a regular basis byother groups of scientists, such as molecular biologists,immunologists or cell biologists.

Paul GriffithsJuly 1997

CCC 1052–9276/97/030129–01 $17.50? 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.