Long thought to be the earliest recorded plant virus, it is now thought that TBV comes second; the earliest reference to a virus-induced leaf chlorosis (possibly Tobacco leaf curl virus) was recorded in Japan in 752 AD [REF].
At the end of the eighteenth century, the notion that "breaking" in tulips was a manifestation of some kind of chronic disorder or weakness in the bulb was certainly considered among botanists; but it was still more or less believed that adverse environmental conditions were to blame.