Introduction
One of the most common perceptions of a virus is to look at it as an enemy, a pathogen, a "disease-causing germ". In veterinary virology, this usually translates into "XY virus causes a devastating (severe, economically important) disease in this or that animal species and may (even) be transmitted to man". Indeed, many viruses have been recognized as the causative agents of diseases, such as Rinderpest, Foot-and-Mouth Disease, Malignant Catarrhal Fever, African and Classical Swine Fever, Pseudorabies, Transmisssible Gastroenteritis, Canine Distemper, Feline Parvovirosis, Rabies, and Influenza - to name but a few. On the other hand, viruses with little or no known pathogenicity did not stir much interest, were neglected at best, if not ridiculed in the scientific community. Examples include bovine herpesvirus type 4, canine parvovirus 1, porcine circovirus, toroviruses, and lentiviruses in general, at least before the advent of the AIDS epidemic.

Indeed, research was focused mainly on the disease-causing viruses. Adaptation of viruses to grow in cell culture and the increasing knowledge of molecular biology have contributed most to the expanding field of virology in the second half of the 20th century.

As illustrated in Fig. 1, the number of appearances of the keyword "virus" in Medline from 1960 to 1999 reveals two stepwise increases, the first one in the mid-sixties reflecting the progress made in molecular biology or, more specifically, in genetic engineering. The second step in the mid-seventies coincides with the Asilomar conference, where scientists declared their willingness to carry the responsibility for their work, particularly in the field of genetic engineering. With the advent of the AIDS epidemic, an exponential increase of virus-related literature can be observed, which levelled into a plateau by the mid-nineties. In 1999 the keyword "virus" was found 11.686 times, not even reaching the number of quotes in 1994 (11.788 times). Is this statistic heralding the doom of virology?

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