Virulence meaning

in an age of violent polemics, distinguished himself by the virulence of his writings against the Protestants.

The disease is seen to have attained its maximum virulence in 1883.

This agitation was directed with particular virulence against the high commissioner, whose recall, it was asserted, would remove the chief obstacle to peace.

Pasteur found that the germs of anthrax could be cultivated outside the body and their virulence weakened either by growing them at too high a temperature or in an unsuitable medium.

A similar increase in virulence appears to occur in plague, where animals, especially rats and mice, seem to be affected before human beings, and not only increase the virulence of the microbes, but convey the infection.