This survivor blood had antibodies to the X virus in it. This meant the blood would react to the X virus. But it wouldn’t react to other viruses. That afternoon, Patricia Webb, working with a colleague named Jim Lange, discovered that the survivor blood didn’t react to any known viruses. Therefore the blood had been infected with an unknown virus. And therefore the virus was new to science. Two weeks later the virus would be named Ebola. Patricia A. Webb is credited as the principal discoverer of Ebola virus, along with Karl M. Johnson, Frederick A. Murphy, and James V. Lange.
