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Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow
Biography
German pathologist and statesman, born October
13, 1821, Schievelbein, Pommern, Preussen; died
September 5, 1902, Berlin.
Associated eponyms:
Apert-Crouzon syndrome
A rare form of Carpenter's syndrome (acrocephalopoysyndactyly)
combining features of the Apert syndrome with
those of the Crouzon syndrome.
Hassall's corpuscles
Spherical or oval eosinophilic bodies present in
the medulla of the thymus gland.
Robin's space
The perivascular lymphatic spaces between the
vessels of the central nerveous system and the
membrana glia limitans perivascularis.
Seckel's syndrome
An intrauterine form of dwarfism.
Virchow's cell
1) Lepra cell. 2) the lacunae in osseous tissue
containing the bone cells; also the bone cells
themselves. 3) connective tissue cells between
the laminae of fibrous tissue in the cornea.
These are also known as corneal corpuscles..
Virchow's law
Omnis cellula e cellula - every cell from a cell.
Virchow's node
Enlargement of one of the supraclavicular lymph
nodes.
Virchow's triad
The functional triad concerned in the
pathogenesis of thrombosis.
Biography:
Rudolf Virchow is considered the most
prominent German physician of the 19th century,
his long and successful career reflecting the
ascendancy of German medicine after 1840. Virchow
pioneered the modern concept of pathological
processes by his application of the cell theory
to explain the effects of disease in the organs
and tissues of the body.
He emphasized that
diseases arose, not in organs or tissues in
general, but primarily in their individual cells.
Moreover, he campaigned vigorously for social
reforms and contributed to the development of
anthropology as a modern science. He worked
vigorously to make the methods of natural science
supreme in the medical sciences.
Rudolf Virchow was born in the small town of
Schievelbein, south of Köslin, in backward and
rural eastern Pomerania, now the city of Koszalin
in northwestern Poland. He was the only son of a
modest merchant. He attended the school of his
native town, where he expressed an early interest
in the natural sciences. He also received private
lessons in Greek, Latin and French from clerics.
Such a background enabled Virchow to become
educationally competitive and on May 1, 1835 he
entered the Gymnasium in Köslin, where he
received a broad humanistic training and
subsequently demonstrated high scholarly
abilities, passing the Abitur at Easter 1939.
Virchow first considered the study of theology,
but chose medicine because he thought his voice
would not bear from the pulpit. Because of his
promising aptitudes, he received in 1839 a
military fellowship to study medicine at the
Friedrich-Wilhelms-Institut in Berlin to receive
training as a military physician. The
institution, popularly known as the “Pépinière,”
provided educational opportunities for those
unable to afford the costs in return for army
medical service.
Although contemporary German medicine was only
slowly shifting away from purely theoretical
concerns, Virchow had the opportunity to study
under Johannes Peter Müller (1801-1858) and
Johann Lukas Schönlein (1793-1864), thereby being
exposed to experimental laboratory and physical
diagnostic methods, as well as epidemiological
studies.
Virchow graduated as a doctor of medicine in 1843
with a degree on the corneal manifestations of
rheumatic disease. To his parents he wrote that
he received his degree from “the dean of the
medical faculty, the world’s most famous
physiologist, Johannes Müller.” He then became a
subordinate physician, but in the autumn of 1844
he received an appointment as “company surgeon”
or medical house officer at the Charité Hospital
in Berlin, where he rotated through the various
services. In addition, with the hospital’s
prosector, Robert Froriep (1804-1861).
In 1845 two forceful speeches delivered by
invitation before large and influential audiences
at the Friedrich-Wilhelms Institut revealed young
Virchow as one of the most articulate spokesmen
for the new generation of German physicians.
Rejecting transcendental concerns, Virchow
envisaged medical progress from three main
sources: clinical observations, including the
examination of the patient with the aid of
physicochemical methods; animal experimentation
to test specific aetiologies and study certain
drug effects; and pathological anatomy,
especially at the microscopic level. Life, he
insisted, was merely the sum of physical and
chemical actions and essentially the expression
of cell activity.
[Karl Note:
It was a popular German opinion in these years
(along with Wundt, that man arose from mud --
this was the change which allowed "psychology" to
become, instead of the study of the "soul," the
study of the reactions of the body to stimuli.
This was the real beginning of the reliance on
drugs to cause effects on the mind (the brain was
now to be considered the "mind").
Virchow’s rather provocative ideas generated
considerable hostility among his older peers, but
he passed his licensure examination in 1846
without difficulties and began teaching
pathological anatomy. Under the auspices of
Prussia’s high military and civilian authorities,
he travelled to Prague and Vienna in order to
evaluate their programs in pathology. One of the
consequences of his trip was Virchow’s strong
attack on Karl von Rokitansky (1894-1878) and the
Viennese Medical School, whom he indicted for
their dogmatism and support of outdated
humoralism (Preussische Medizinal Zeitung,
December, 1846; Cleio medica, 1969, 4: 127-149).
In 1845 Virchow published a treatise on
thrombosis and haematosis as delineated in his
triad, describing one of the two earliest
reported cases of leukaemia. This paper became a
classic.
Virchow was relieved of military duty in 1847 to
be habilitated as Privatdozent and, after having
completed his Habilitationsschrift; he was
officially appointed an instructor under the
deanship of Johannes Müller at the University of
Berlin. In 1846 he had also succeeded Froriep as
prosector at the Charité Hospital, after Froriep
moved to the position of director of the
Weimarischer Landes-Industrie-Comptoir.
Virchow’s Archiv
Dissatisfied with the editors of journals that
refused to accept some of his papers, Virchow,
with his friend Benno Ernst Heinrich Reinhardt
(1819-1852), in 1846 founded a new journal,
Archiv für pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie
und für klinische Medizin ("Archives of
Pathological Anatomy and Physiology and of
Clinical Medicine"). He wrote that the aim of the
journal was a close union of clinical medicine,
pathological anatomy and physiology and this
remained his lifetime objective. He strongly
propounded the concept that unproved hypothesis
is an anathema for the practice of medicine and
that no man could be regarded as infallible with
regard to knowledge, judgement or supposition.
This journal became one of the most prominent
medical periodicals of the time. After
Reinhardt's death in 1852, Virchow continued as
sole editor, now known as Virchows Archiv, until
his own death 50 years later.
Early in 1848 Virchow, aged twenty-seven, was
sent by the Prussian government to investigate an
outbreak of hunger typhus epidemic prevalent in
the weavers of Upper Silesia.
With the paediatrician and bureaucrat (Geheimer
Ober-Medicinalrath) Stephan Friedrich Barez
(1790-1856), Virchow visited the afflicted region
for almost three weeks and came face to face with
the backward and destitute Polish minority, who
were struggling precariously to survive.
According to his own testimony, the impact of
that encounter left an indelible mark on his
already liberal social and political beliefs.
Instead of merely returning with a new set of the
usual humanitarian, hygienic phrases and medical
guidelines for the Prussian government, Virchow
recommended political freedom, and sweeping
educational and economic reforms for the people
of Upper Silesia.
Virchow quickly appreciated that the epidemic was
largely due to the dreadful living conditions.
His report and its severe indictment of the
government for allowing this type of misery to
occur and his emphasis on social injustices and
poor hygienic regulations that were currently
operative made him very unpopular with the
government. The report was in part politically
motivated; it stated inter alia “the proletariat
is the result, principally, of the introduction
and improvement of machinery” . . . “shall the
triumph of human genius lead to nothing more than
to make the human race miserable?”.
The government was annoyed, but it had to deal
with the revolution of 1848 in Berlin. Eight days
after his return from Silesia Virchow helped
construct some of the barricades in Berlin during
the uprising and participated in a movement by
doctors to appoint a minister for health and
secure greater rights. Virchow recommended the
establishment of a Reichsministerium für
öffentliche Gesundheitspflege and the abolishment
of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Institut.
After the revolution Virchow embraced the cause
of such medical reforms as abolition of the
various grades of physicians and surgeons, and
from July 1848 to June 1849 he published a weekly
paper, Die Medicinische Reform, much of which he
wrote himself.
In 1848 he had to turn down a call as the
representative of a Prussian borough, because he
was not still of legal age for such a position.
On March 31, 1849, minister Von Ladenberg
suspended Virchow from his academic position as
prosector at the Charité Hospital. Although two
weeks later he was reinstated as a result of
protests from medical circles and students, with
the loss of certain privileges.
Help from prominent personalities, in particular
the obstetrician Friedrich Wilhelm Scanzoni von
Lichtenfels (1821-1891), in 1849 made possible
Virchow’s appointment to the newly established
chair of pathological anatomy at the University
of Würzburg, the first chair of that subject in
Germany.
Here he was temporarily separated from political
concerns, and here he gained a reputation as an
outstanding teacher and investigator. During his
seven fruitful years in that tenure, the number
of medical students in the university increased
from 98 to 388. Many men who later attained fame
in the medical field received training there from
him, among them were Edwin Klebs (1834-1913),
Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) and Adolf Kussmaul
(1822-1902).
In 1850 Virchow married Rose Mayer, with whom he
had three sons and three daughters.
In 1852, on assignment from the Bavarian
government, Virchow investigated the famine in
Spessart. The Würzburg years marked Virchow’s
highest level of scientific achievement. At
Würzburg Virchow published many papers on
pathological anatomy. He began there the
publication of his monumental, six-volume
textbook Handbuch der speziellen Pathologie und
Therapie ("Handbook of Special Pathology and
Therapeutics"), most of the first volume of which
he wrote himself. He also edited the famous
Jahresbericht, a German yearbook depicting
medical advances. At Würzburg he also began to
formulate his theories on cellular pathology and
started his anthropological work with studies of
the skulls of cretins (dwarfed, mentally
deficient individuals) and investigations into
the development of the base of the skull. In 1856
Virchow accepted an invitation to return to the
University of Berlin as professor of anatomy,
general pathology, and therapy, as well as
director of the newly created Pathological
Institute.
This invitation reached him despite tough
competition from among others the surgeon Theodor
Billroth (1829-1894), and was made possible
because the King had asked the medical faculty to
disregard Virchow’s political views.
Virchow accepted the call subject to certain
conditions, one of which was the erection of a
new pathological institute, which he used for the
rest of his life. Under Virchow the institution
became a famous training ground for a large
number of German and foreign medical scientists,
including Ernst Felix Immanuel Hoppe-Seyler
(1825-1895), Friedrich Daniel Recklinghausen
(1833-1910), and Julius Friedrich Cohnheim
(1839-1884). In addition, for almost two decades,
Virchow remained in charge of a clinical section
of the Charité Hospital, thereby carrying out the
program of medical progress enunciated in 1845.
During much of this second Berlin period, Virchow
actively engaged in politics. In 1859 he was
elected to the Berlin City Council, on which, for
the rest of his life, he focused on public health
matters, such as sewage disposal, the design of
hospitals, meat inspection, and school hygiene.
He supervised the design of two large new Berlin
hospitals, the Friedrichshain and the Moabit, and
opened a nursing school in the Friedrichshain
Hospital. Aided by the mayor of Berlin, Karl T.
Seydel, who was his brother-in-law, Virchow was
instrumental in achieving improvements in the
sewage system and water supply of the rapidly
growing metropolis.
In 1859 Virchow undertook a journey to Norway,
invited by the Norwegian government, in order to
investigate an epidemic of lepra (Hansen’s
disease) on the western coast of Norway, probably
the Bergen area.
In 1861 Virchow was elected to the Prussian Diet
– the lower house – representing the new liberal
Deutsche Fortschrittspartei (German Progressive
Party), which he had founded with some friends.
Virchow was an early, determined and untiring
opponent of Otto von Bismarck’s policy of
rearmament and forced unification. Virchow
brought down upon himself the wrath of the “Iron
Chancellor”, who in 1865 challenged him to a
duel, which he wisely declined.
As a member of the board of the Berliner
Hilfsverein für die Armee im Felde in 1866, 1870,
1871, Virchow, under great personal efforts,
organized the first hospital trains and
contributed to the building of the
Barackenlazaret on the Tempelhof field near
Berlin. In the Franco-German War he personally
led the first hospital train to the front.
Medical investigations
By 1848 Virchow had disproved the
then-prevailing view that phlebitis (inflammation
of a vein) causes most diseases. He demonstrated
that masses in the blood vessels resulted from
"thrombosis" (his term) and that portions of a
thrombus could become detached to form an
"embolus" (also his term). An embolus set free in
the circulation might eventually be trapped in a
narrower vessel and lead to a serious lesion in
the neighbouring parts. He was the first to
recognise lung-and cerebral embolism.
Virchow's concept of cellular pathology was
initiated while he was at Würzburg. Until the
latter part of the 18th century, diseases were
supposed to be due to an imbalance of the four
fluid humours of the body (blood, phlegm, yellow
bile, and black bile). This was the "humoral
pathology," which dated back to the Greeks.
Contrary to the humoral pathology and kraselære
of the Vienna school Virchow saw the causes of
disease in changes of the cells. To Virchow the
body is a “cell state in which each cell is a
citizen,” and he considered disease to be simply
“a conflict between the citizens of the state,
caused by outer forces.” He crushed the old
doctrines of humors and crases, and because of
this was particularly brutal in his attack on
Rokitansky’s first textbook Handbuch der
pathologischen Anatomie (3 volumes, 1842-1846).
In the second edition of this book (1855-1861)
Rokitansky had removed all references to this
type of speculative thinking.
At Würzburg Virchow began to realize that one
form of the cell theory, which postulated that
every cell originated from a pre-existing cell
rather than from amorphous material, could give
new insight into pathological processes. In this
he was influenced by the work of many others,
notably by the views of John Goodsir (1814-1867)
of Edinburgh on the cell as a centre of
nutrition. Virchow dedicated the first edition of
his Cellularpathologie to Goodsir. He was also
influenced by the investigations of the German
neuroanatomist and embryologist Robert Remak
(1815-1865), who in 1852 was one of the first to
point out that cell division accounted for the
multiplication of cells to form tissues. By that
year Remak had concluded that new cells arose
from existing cells in diseased as well as
healthy tissue. Remak's writings, however, had
little influence on pathologists and medical
practitioners. Thus the idea expressed by
Virchow's omnis cellula e cellula ("every cell is
derived from a [preexisting] cell") is not
completely original. Even this aphorism is not
Virchow's; it was coined by the French natural
scientist and politician François Vincent Raspail
(1794-1878) in 1825. But Virchow made cellular
pathology into a system of overwhelming
importance. His main statement of the theory was
given in a series of 20 lectures in 1858. The
lectures, published in 1858 as his book Die
Cellularpathologie in ihrer Begründung auf
physiologische und pathologische Gewebenlehre
(Cellular Pathology as Based upon Physiological
and Pathological Histology), at once transformed
scientific thought in the whole field of biology.
Virchow shed new light on the process of
inflammation, though he erroneously rejected the
possibility of migration of the leukocytes (white
blood cells). He distinguished between fatty
infiltration and fatty degeneration, and he
introduced the modern conception of amyloid
(starchy) degeneration. He devoted great
attention to the pathology of tumours, but the
importance of his papers on malignant tumours and
of his three-volume work on that subject (Die
krankhaften Geschwülste, 1863-1867) was somewhat
marred by his erroneous conception that
malignancy results from a conversion (metaplasia)
of connective tissue. His work on the role of
animal parasites, especially trichina, in causing
disease in humans was fundamental and led to his
own public interest in meat inspection. In 1874
he introduced a standardized technique for
performing autopsies, by the use of which the
whole body was examined in detail, often
revealing unsuspected lesions.
Virchow's sceptical attitude to the new science
of bacteriology was complex, based, to a large
extent, on his belief that there was no single
cause of disease. He resisted the idea that any
germ was the sole etiological agent causing
disease, and he rightly argued that the presence
of a certain microorganism in a patient with a
particular disease did not always indicate that
that organism was the cause of the disease. He
suggested, long before toxins were actually
discovered, that some bacteria might produce
these substances.
Following his experiences in Upper Silesia,
Virchow stressed a sociological theory of
disease, claiming that political and
socio-economic factors acted as significant
predisposing factors in many ailments.
He even went so far as to declare
that certain epidemics arose specifically in
response to some social upheavals. Virchow
considered a number of diseases “artificial” or
primarily caused by conditions within society and
thus liable to cure or elimination through social
change. As early as 1848 Virchow insisted
on the constitutional right of every individual
to be healthy. Society had the responsibility to
provide the necessary sanitary conditions for the
unhampered development of its members.
In proclaiming that medicine was the highest form
of human insight and the mother of all the
sciences, Virchow was following in the footsteps
of French social thought and also expressing a
postulate of the German philosophers of nature.
Although his utopian hopes for medicine as the
universal science of man did not materialize,
Virchow’s efforts were helpful in associating the
rapidly developing natural sciences with medical
concerns. His attempts to derive an ethical
framework from the biological sciences laid the
foundations of bioethics.
Work in anthropology
It was in the early years of his second period in
Berlin that Virchow’s interest began to shift
gradually from pathology to anthropology. In 1865
he discovered pile dwellings in northern Germany,
and in 1870 he began his own excavations of hill
forts in Pomerania. In 1869 he was cofounder of
the German Anthropological Society, and in the
same year he founded the Berlin Society for
Anthropology, Ethnology, and Prehistory -
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Anthropologie,
Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, of which he was
president from 1869 until his death. During the
whole of that period, he edited its Zeitschrift
für Ethnologie ("Journal of Ethnology").
In 1874 Virchow, the enthusiastic dilettante, met
Heinrich Schliemann, the discoverer of the site
of Troy, and in 1879 he accompanied Schliemann to
Hissarlik, where Troy was being excavated, and in
1888 to another dig in Egypt. In 1881 and in 1894
Virchow made expeditions to the Caucasus.
Virchow was the organizer of German anthropology.
In 1886 he was instrumental in the erection of
the Berlin Ethnological Museum, followed by the
Museum of German Folklore in 1888. It was due
largely to Virchow that Schliemann gave his
magnificent collection to Berlin.
Virchow was the author of several studies dealing
with skull deformities. He studied the physical
characteristics of the Germans, especially the
Frisians. After performing a nationwide racial
survey of schoolchildren, Virchow concluded that
there was no pure German race but only a mixture
of different morphological types.
The man
Virchow was described as a small, mobile figure
with a quick wit and somewhat of a martinet in
the autopsy or lecture room. He would often be
extremely sarcastic in dealing with incompetence,
foolishness or inattention; on the other hand he
could be extremely generous and helpful and
always remembered those who had made
contributions. For example, despite his virulent
attack on Rokitansky, he highly praised the best
features of his work. The clinics and those of
his colleagues in Berlin must have been
entertaining to visit because he, Remak, and
others often hurled abuse at the speaker during
the lecture courses. He was particularly virulent
with the clinician Friedrich Theodor von Frerichs
(1819-1885) - many would say unjustly so -
whereas he was kindly disposed towards Ludwig
Traube (1818-1876), who many felt was
over-respectful to Virchow, fearing that he might
come under the great man’s ire.
His strength of conviction and character is
perhaps best illustrated by his consistent
political activity in a society that was at the
pinnacle of authoritarianism. He nonetheless was
an extreme patriot and during the Franco-Prussian
war organised the Prussian ambulance corps and
superintended the erection of an army hospital on
the Tempelhof. Indeed when he heard of a pamphlet
of the French prehistorian A. de Quatrefages
written following the accidental shelling of the
museum of natural history in Paris, stating that
Prussians were not a Germanic, but were a
barbaric Mongolian destructive race, Virchow
organised a colossal public census of the colour
of the hair and eyes of 6 million German school
children!
It is sometimes said that Virchow was
antagonistic to Charles Darwin's theory of the
origin of species by natural selection. The fact
is that he accepted the theory as a tentative
hypothesis but maintained throughout his later
years that there was insufficient scientific
evidence to justify its full acceptance. He also
could not accept the views of Robert Koch
(1843-1910) and Emil Behring (1854-1917)
concerning toxins and antitoxins.
He wrote a number of interesting historical and
biographical essays on Schönlein, Morgagni, and
Müller, the latter whom he greatly admired and
regarded as one of his inspirations in science.
The exceptionally active and at times
controversial man died of a road accident. He
leapt at the age of 81 from a moving tram and
broke his hip.
In 1873 Virchow was elected to the Prussian
Academy of Sciences. He declined to be ennobled
as "von Virchow," but in 1894 he was created
Geheimrat ("privy councillor"). During a visit to
England to give the Croonian lectures, he was
conferred doctor of honour - Doctor of Common Law
– and received numerous honours, including
Commander of the Legion of Honour.
Virchow was a member of the Reichstag from 1880
to 1893, and during the 1880’s played a key role
in the budgetary matters of the Reichstag, and he
remained chairman of the finance committee until
his death.
At the international congresses in Rome and
Moscow, 1894 and 1897, respectively, Virchow
lectured on Morgagni and the continuity of life
as the basis for modern biological outlooks.
Virchow’s eightieth birthday in 1901 became the
occasion for an unprecedented worldwide
celebration. A torchlight parade in Berlin and
numerous receptions in the leading scientific
centres, even as far away as Japan and Russia,
gave testimony to his unparalleled international
reputation. Never seriously ill throughout his
long life, Virchow suffered a broken hip in early
1902 after falling from a streetcar in Berlin.
Although seemingly on the mend, the long period
of inactivity seriously undermined his health,
and he died several months later of cardiac
insufficiency.
Virchow’s great fame made him a widely respected
authority in his numerous fields of endeavour.
His penchant, however, for polemics and
acrimonious exchanges with colleagues exerted
unfavourable influences for the development of
certain medical ideas and methods. An example was
his opposition to the prophylactic hand washings
of Semmelweis for the prevention of puerperal
fever. In his later years Virchow displayed a
stifling dogmatism and a certain pedantry, which
in some measure detracted from his earlier
popularity. In spite of these traits he was
overwhelmingly self-confident and untiringly
persuasive in popularising his views. Few great
men have been privileged to perceive more clearly
the fruits of their labours in the autumn of
their lives than Virchow. In less than half a
century Germany had progressed from speculative
and philosophical healing to become the world
centre of modern scientific medicine, and Virchow
had played a decisive role in this crucial
transformation.
Most of Virchow’s important medical and
anthropological writings are enumerated
chronologically in a small “Festschrift” edited
by Julius Schwalbe on the occasions of Virchow’s
80th birthday: Virchow-Bibliographie 1843-1901.
Berlin, 1901, which covers close to 2,000 titles,
and contains a valuable subject index. Pertinent
archival material can be found in the “Nachlass
Rudolf Virchow” of the Literatur-Archiv, Institut
für deutsche Sprache und Literatur, Deutsche
Akademie der Wissenschaften, East Berlin. Thor
Jager (Wichita, Kansas, U.S.A.) has a large
collection of Virchow’s original manuscripts and
letters, with many pamphlets and books.
His son, Hans Virchow (born 1852) was teacher of
anatomy at the Königliche Hochschule für die
bildenden Künste and professor at the University
of Berlin.
A cell state in which every cell is a
citizen.
Die Cellularpathologie
Marriages are not normally made to avoid having
children.
Quoted by F. H. Garrison in Bulletin of the New
York Academy of Medicine, 1928, 4: 995.
Has not science the noble privilege of carrying
on its controversies without personal quarrels?
Quoted by F. H. Garrison in Bulletin of the New
York Academy of Medicine, 1928, 4: 995.
Ever since we recognized that diseases are
neither self-subsistent, circumscribed,
autonomous organisms, nor entities which have
forced their way into the body, nor parasites
rooted on it, but . . . the course of
physiological phenomena under altered
conditions . . . the goal of therapy has had to
be the maintenance or the reestablishment of
normal physiological conditions.
Disease, Life, and Man, “Standpoints in
Scientific Medicine,” Translated by L. J.
Rather.
Belief has no place as far as science reaches,
and may be first permitted to take root when
science stops.
Disease, Life, and Man, “On Man,” Translated by
L. J. Rather.
There can be no scientific dispute with respect
to faith, for science and faith exclude one
another.
Disease, Life, and Man, “On Man,” Translated by
L. J. Rather.
Where a cell arises, there a cell must have
previously existed (omnis cellula e cellula),
just as an animal can spring only from an
animal, a plant only from a plant.
Cellular Pathology, Lecture II.
Translated by Frank Chance.
If only people would finally stop finding
points of disagreement in the personal
characteristics and external circumstances of
investigators! It does not matter at all
whether someone is a professor of clinical
medicine or of theoretical pathology, whether
he is a practitioner or a hospital physician,
if only he possesses material for observation.
In addition, it is not of decisive significance
whether he confronts an overwhelming or a
modest amount of material, if only he
understands how to exploit it. And to do this
he must know what he wants: in other words, he
must be in a position to put the right
questions and to find the right methods for
answering them.
Disease, Life, and Man, “Cellular Pathology.”
Translated by L. J. Rather.
Humanism, therefore, is neither atheistic nor
pantheistic, for it knows only one formula for
everything lying beyond the bounds of
knowledge: I do not know.
Disease, Life, and Man, “On Man,” Translated by
L. J. Rather.
Practical medicine is never the same thing as
scientific medicine but rather, even in the
hands of the greatest master, an application of
it.
Disease, Life, and Man, “Standpoints in
Scientific Medicine.” Translated by L. J.
Rather.
If popular medicine gave the people wisdom as
well as knowledge, it would be the best
protection for scientific and well-trained
physicians.
I uphold my own rights and therefore I also
recognize the rights of others.
Cellular Pathology, Preface. Translated
by Frank Chance.
Pathology also has its place in the science of
biology, certainly a very honorably one, for to
pathology we owe the realization that the
contrast between health and disease is not to
be sought in a fundamental difference of two
kinds of life, nor in an alteration of essence,
but only in an alteration of conditions.
Disease, Life, and Man, “The Place of Pathology
Among the Biological Sciences.” Translated by
L. J. Rather.
Pathology has been released from the anomalous
and isolated position which it has occupied for
thousands of years. Through the application of
its doctrines not only diseases of man, but
also to those of even the smallest and lowest
of animals, and to those of plants, it helps to
deepen biological knowledge, and to light up
still further that region of the unknown which
still envelops the intimate structure of living
matter. It is no longer merely applied
physiology - it has become physiology itself.
Disease, Life, and Man, “The Place of Pathology
Among the Biological Sciences.” Translated by
L. J. Rather.
Only those who regard healing as the ultimate
goal of their efforts can, therefore, be
designated as physicians.
Disease, Life, and Man, “Standpoints in
Scientific Medicine.” Translated by L. J.
Rather.
You can soon become so engrossed in study, then
professional cares, in getting and spending,
you may so lay waste your powers that you find
too late with hearts given away that there is
no place in your habit-stricken souls for those
gentler influences that make life worth living.
Medical instruction does not exist to provide
individuals with an opportunity of learning how
to make a living, but in order to make possible
the protection of the health of the public.
Address to medical students at the Pathological
Institute, Berlin.
Imprisoned quacks are always replaced by new
ones.
Quoted by F. H. Garrison in Bulletin of the New
York Academy of Medicine, 1928, 4: 995.
Laws should be made, not against quacks but
against superstition.
Quoted by F. H. Garrison in Bulletin of the New
York Academy of Medicine, 1928, 4: 995.
From the basic error that
specific remedies were created for particular
diseases came the notion that the whole course
of a disease, or even its separate stages,
could be annihilated by a single remedy. It was
reserved for the ablest physicians of all times
to perceive that identical remedies are good
only for identical phases of different diseases
and that for different phases of the same
disease, different remedies are necessary.
Quoted by F. H. Garrison in Bulletin of the New
York Academy of Medicine, 1928, 4: 994.
The task of science, therefore, is not to
attack the objects of faith, but to establish
the limits beyond which knowledge cannot go and
to found a unified self-consciousness within
these limits. Disease, Life, and Man, “On Man,”
Translated by L. J. Rather.
Science in itself is nothing, for it exists
only in the human beings who are its bearers .
. . the idea “science for its own sake” . . .
recalls the non-human conception in which man
regards his soul as the true reality, as his
real essence, where he “knows himself only as a
spirit and has yet come to value his corporeal
part.”
Disease, Life, and Man, “Standpoints in
Scientific Medicine.” Translated by L. J.
Rather.
The touchstone of true science is power of
performance, for it is a truism that what can,
also will, and thus attains to real science.
Medicine is a social science in its very bone
marrow . . . No physiologist or practitioner
ought ever to forget that medicine unites in
itself all knowledge of the laws which apply to
the body and the mind.
Disease, Life, and Man, “Scientific Method and
Therapeutic Standpoint.” Translated by L. J.
Rather.
Should medicine ever fulfil its great ends, it
must enter into the larger political and social
life of our time; it must indicate the barriers
which obstruct the normal completion of the
life-cycle and remove them. Should this ever
come to pass, Medicine, what ever it may then
be, will become the common good of all. It will
cease to be medicine and will be absorbed into
that general body of knowledge which is
identifiable with power. Then will Bacon’s
prediction be accomplished fact: what seemed
casual in theory will become established rule
in practice.
Die Einheitsbestrebungen in der
wissenschaftlichen Medizin.
The physicians are the natural attorneys of the
poor and the social problems should largely be
solved by them.
Quoted by Erwin H. Ackerknecht in Rudolf
Virchow, “The Doctor”
There are circumstances in which the split
between scientific and practical medicine is so
great that the learned physician can do
nothing, while the practical physician knows
nothing. Lord Bacon has said, scientia est
potentia. Knowledge which is
unable to support action is not genuine, and
how unsure is activity without understanding!
This split between science and practice is
rather new; our century and our country have
brought it into being.
Disease, Life, and Man,
“Standpoints in Scientific Medicine.
”Translated by L. J. Rather.
What is dark and incomprehensible attracts some
minds more than what is clear and
understandable.
Quoted by F. H. Garrison in Bulletin of the New
York Academy of Medicine, 1928, 4: 994.
As long as vitalism and spiritualism are open
questions so long will the gateway of science
be open to mysticism.
Quoted by F. H. Garrison in Bulletin of the New
York Academy of Medicine, 1928, 4: 994.
Brevity in writing is the best insurance for
its perusal.
Quoted by F. H. Garrison in Bulletin of the New
York Academy of Medicine, 1928, 4: 994.
The conjunction “and” commonly serves to
indicate that the writer’s mind still functions
even when no signs of the phenomenon are
noticeable.
Quoted by F. H. Garrison in Bulletin of the New
York Academy of Medicine, 1928, 4: 994.
In my journal anyone can make a fool of
himself.
Bibliography:
Rudolf Virchow was the editor of Handbuch der
speciellen Pathologie und Therapie. 6
volumes, Erlangen, 1854-1876. From 1866, with
Franz von Holtzendorf, he published the Sammlung
gemeinverständlicher wissenschaftlicher Vorträge.
With Gottfried Eisenmann (1795-1867) and Johann
Joseph von Scherer (1814-1869), Virchow from 1852
edited Karl Friedrich Cannstatt’s (1807-1850)
annual reports, Jahresbericht über die
Leistungen und Fortschritte der gesammten Medicin
(Berlin). From 1867 these were published by
Virchow under the title of Jahresbericht über
die Leistungen und Fortschritte in der gesamten
Medicin. From 1894 published with Carl Posner
(1854-).
Below, the Archiv für pathologische Anatomie und
Physiologie und für klinische Medicin, Berlin, is
referred to as Virchows Archiv.
- De rheumate praesertim corneae.
Doctoral dissertation, Berlin, 1843.
- Weisses Blut. [Froriep’s] Notizen
aus dem Gebiete der Natur- und Heilkunde, 1845,
36: 151-156.
Only six weeks after John Hughes Bennett
(1812-1875), Virchow independently published a
report on the necropsy of a case of leukaemia.
He gave the condition its present name.
J. H. Bennett: Case of hypertrophy of the
spleen and liver, in which death took place
from suppuration of the blood. Edinburgh
Medical and Surgical Journal, 1845, 64:
413-423.
- Die pathologischen Pigmente.
Virchows Archiv, 1847, 1: 379-404, 407-486.
One the origin and chemical composition of
extracellular and intracellular pigments, and
on the supposed formation of new cells by the
membranous envelopment of pigmented blood
corpuscles or pigment granules.
- Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Krebses.
Virchows Archiv, 1847, 1: 94-201.
- Ueber die acute Entzündung der Arterien.
Virchows Archiv, 1847, 1: 272-378.
- Mittheilungen über die in Oberschlesien
herrschende Typhusepidemie. Berlin, 1848.
- Die Einheitsbestrebungen in der
wissenschaftlichen Medicin. Berlin 1849.
- Die naturwissenschaftliche Methode und
die Standpunkte in der Therapie. Virchows
Archiv, 1849, 2: 3-37.
- Der Staat und die Aerzte. II.
Die medicinische Reform, 1849, 38: 217 ff.
- Der Staat und die Aerzte.
III. Die medicinische Reform, 1849, 39:
221-223.
- Ueber eine im Gehirn und Rückenmark des
Menschen aufgefundene Substanz mit der
chemsichen Reaction der Cellulose.
Virchows Archiv, 1854, 6: 135-138.
Discovery of the neuroglia.
- Empirie und Transscendenz. Virchows
Archiv, 1854, 7: 3-29.
- Cellular-Pathologie. Virchows Archiv,
1855, 8: 3-39.
- Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur
wissenschaftlichen Medicin.
Frankfurt am Main, 1 Meidinger, 1856; 2nd
edition, Berlin, 1862.
Reprints of papers covering a wide spectrum of
clinical pathology published between 1846 and
1853. Contains, among other things:
Thrombose und Embolie. Gefässentzündung und
septische Infektion. Pages 219-732.
Ueber farblose Blutkörperchen in Leukämie.
Pages 147-218. Includes his paper on "Weisses
Blut" and three later papers on lekcaemia.
- Beiträge zur Lehre von dem beim Menschen
vorkommenden pflanzlichen Parasiten.
Virchows Archiv, 1856, 9: 557-593.
First description of pulmonary aspergillosis.
- Untersuchungen über die Entwicklung des
Schädelgrundes.
Berlin, 1857.
- Die Cellularpathologie in ihrer
Begründung auf physiologische und pathologische
Gewebelehre.
Berlin, A. Hirschwald, 1858; 4th edition, 1871.
Translated into almost every European language.
Representing 20 lectures that he delivered at
the Pathological Institute in Berlin between
February and April 1858. The 2nd edition was
translated into English by F. Chance, as
Cellular Pathology as Based Upon Physiological
and Pathological Histology. London, 1860.
The English translation has been reprinted
several times.
The work was dedicated John Goodsir
(1814-1867), the Scottish anatomist and
investigator in cellular physiology and
pathology who insisted on the importance of the
cell as the centre of nutrition and declared
that the cell is divided into a number of
departments.
One of the most important books in the history
of medicine, and the cornerstone of cellular
pathology. Omnis cellula e cellula.
- Ueber die Natur der
constitutionell-syphilitischen Affectionen.
Virchows Archiv, 1858, 15: 217-336.
Virchow's great work on the pathology of
syphilis confirmed the fact that it was a
disease which involved all organs and tissues
of the body and showed that the causal organism
was transferred throught the blood to the
various organs and tissues. Issued as offprint,
1859.
- Johannes Mueller. Eine Gedächntnissrede.
Berlin, 1858.
- Goethe als Naturforscher. Berlin,
1861.
- Vier Reden über Leben und Kranksein.
Berlin, 1862.
Contains: Atome und Individuen, pp.
35-76.
- Die krankhaften Geschwülste. 3
volumes, Berlin, 1863-1867.
This classic work on tumors was never
completed. Intended to consist of thirty
lectures, Virchow stopped after the
twenty-fifth. It is a very important work on
cancer, but records Virchow's erroneous
conclusion that the origin of cancer is in the
connective tissue, a theory that was almost
immediately refuted by Heinrich Wilhelm
Gottfried Waldeyer-Hartz (1836-1921) in a paper
appearing in Virchows own journal (1867, 41:
470-523; and 1872, 55: 67-159): Die
Entwicklung der Carcinome.
- Ueber die nationale Entwicklung und
Bedeutung der Naturwissenschaften. Berlin,
1865.
- Die Erziehung des Weibes für seinen
Beruf. 1865.
- Gedächtnissrede auf Johann Lucas
Schoenlein. Berlin, 1865.
- Lehre von den Trichinen. Berlin,
1865. 3rd edition, 1866.
- Ueber den Hungertyphus und einige
verwandte Krankheitsformen. Berlin, A.
Hirschwald, 1868.
English translation, London, 1868.
In the above report on the reappearance of
typhus in Berlin and East Prussia, Virchow
showed the connection between famine conditions
and typhus outbreaks and strongly emphasised
the social element in the generation of typhus.
- Ueber gewisse, die Gesundheit
benachtheiligende Einflüsse der Schulen.
Virchows Archiv, 1869, 46: 447-470.
English translation, New York, 1871.
Improvements in school hygiene and the regular
inspection of school children were brought
about by the efforts of Virchow.
- Ueber die Canalisation von Berlin.
Viertejahrsschrift für gerichtliche und
öffentliche Medicin, Berlin, 1868, n. F: 1.43.
Virchow advocated a canal sewer system for
Berlin.
Such a system was constructed by James Hobrecht
(1825-1902).
- Ueber Gesichtsurnen.
Lecture at the Gesellschaft für Anthropologie,
Ethnologie und Urgeschichte. 1870.
- Die Siamesischen Zwillinge.
Lecture at the Berlin Medical Society, 1870.
- Menschen und Affenschädel. Lecture,
Berlin, 1870.
Translated as The Cranial Affinities of Man
and the Ape. Berlin, 1871.
- Die Aufgabe der Naturwissenschaften in
dem neuen nationalen Leben Deutschlands.
1871.
- Ueber Lazarette und Barracken.
Berliner klinische Wochenschrift, 1871, 8:
109-111, 121-124, 133-135, 157-159.
- Ueber die Chlorose und die damit
zusammenhängenden Anomalien im Gefässapparate,
insbesondere über Endocarditis puepereralis.
Lecture at the meeting of the Berliner
geburtshilfliche Gesellschaft, June 12, 1870.
Berlin, 1872.
- Generalbericht über die Arbeiten der
städtischen Deputation zur Reinigung und
Entwässerung Berlins. 1873.
- Ueber einige Merkmale niederer
Menschenrassen.
Abhandlungen der königlichen Akademie der
Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1875.
- Sectionstechnik. 1876; 2nd edition,
1883.
- Beiträge zur physischen Anthropologie
der Deutschen, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung
der Friesen.
Abhandlungen der königlichen preussischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften,
Physisch-mathematische Klasse, Abt. I, 1:
1-390. Reprint, Berlin, 1877.
- Die Freiheit der Wissenschaft im
modernen Staate. Berlin, 1877. English
translation: The Freedom of Science in the
Modern State. London, 1879.
- Gesammelte Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete
der öffentlichen Medicin und der Seuchenlehre.
2 volumes; Berlin, 1879. Dealing with medical
reform and public health; epidemics and
mortality statistics, hospitals, military and
urban sanitation; and legal medicine.
- Beiträge zur Landeskunde in Troas.
1879.
- Über die neueren Fortschritte in der
Pathologie mit besonderer Beziehung auf
Öffentliche Gesundheitspflege und Aetiologie.
In: Gesammelte Abhandlungen auf dem Gebiete der
öffentlichen Medicin und der Seuchenlehre.
Volume 1. Berlin, 1879: 96-107.
- Krankheitswesen und Krankheitsursachen.
Virchows Archiv, 1880, 79: 1-19, 185-228.
- Der Aussatz auf der iberischen Halbinsel.
Virchows Archiv, volume 84.
- Die Craigentinny Farm bei Edinburg.
Virchows Archiv, volume 96.
- Alttrojanische Gräber und Schädel.
1882.
- Abhandlung über den Schädel des jungen
Gorilla.
Monatsberichte der königlichen Akademie der
Wissenschaften, 1880.
Sitzungeberichte der Königlich Preussischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1882.
- Die Anstalten der Stadt Berlin für die
öffentliche Gesundheitspflege und den
naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht.
With Albert Guttstadt (1840-1909). Berlin,
1886.
- Crania Ethnica Americana, Sammlung
auserlesener amerikanischer Schädeltypen.
Berlin, A. Asker, 1892.
- Vorstellung der Knaben Dobos Janos.
Berliner klinische Wochenschrift, 1892, 29:
517.
Seckel's bird-headed dwarfism.
- Die Gründung der Berliner Universität
und der Uebergang von dem philosophischen in
das naturwissenschaftliche Zeitalter.
Rectoral address, Berlin, 1893.
- Morgagni und der anatomische Gedanke.
Lecture at the international congress in Rome
1894. Berlin, 1894.
English translation by R. E. Schlueter and J.
Auer: Morgagni and the Anatomical Concept.
Bulletin of the History of Medicine,
Baltimore, 1939, 7: 975-989.
- Hundert Jahre allgemeiner Pathologie.
Festschrift zum 100jährigen Stiftungsfest der
Kaiser-Wilhelm-Akademie, 1895.
- Kontinuität des Lebens als Grundlage der
modernen biologischen Anschauung.
Lecture at the international congress in Moscow
1897.
- Die Huxley-Vorlesung über die neueren
Fortschritte in der Wissenschaft und deren
Einfluss auf Medizin und Chirurgie.
London, 1898. Berlin, A Hirschwald, 1898.
English translation in Disease, Life and Man.
Selected Essays by Rudolf Virchow. Selected,
translated, annotated, and introduced by L. J.
Rather, Stanford, 1959.
- Unser Jubelband. Virchows Archiv No.
150.
- Die neue Folge der Bände des Archivs für
pathologische Anatomie. Virchows Archiv,
No. 151.
- Die Vorlesungen Rudolf Virchows über
allgemeine pathologische Anatomie aus dem
Wintersemester 1855-56 in Würzburg.
Edited by E. Kugler. Jena, 1930.
Virchow's papers on public health were
collected, annotated, and translated into
English by L. J. Rather as:
- Collected Essays on Public Health and
Epidemiology.
2 volumes. Canton, Massachusetts, 1985.
- L. J. Rather:
A Commentary on the Medical Writings of
Rudolf Virchow.
San Francisco, Norman Publishing, 1990.
Virchow-Bibliographie 1843-1901. Hrsg. von
Julius Schwalbe (1863-1930). Berlin, 1901. With
more than 2000 of Virchow's printed works.
Works on Rudolf Virchow and his time
- W. Becher:
Rudolf Virchow. Berlin, 1891.
Auswärtige Presstimmen über den Tod Virchows.
In: Berliner Tageblatt und Handels-Zeitung, Jg.
31, Nr. 453, v. 6.9. 1902.
- W. Ebstein:
Rudolf Virchow als Arzt. Stuttgart,
1903.
- W. von Waldeyer:
Gedächtnisrede auf Rudolf Virchow.
Abhandlungen der königlichen preussischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften aus dem Jahre 1903.
Berlin, 1903, pp. 1-52.
- R. Drilll:
Virchow als Reaktionär. In: Das freie
Wort, Frankfurter Halbmonatsschrift, 1903, 2:
402-467.
- J. Pagel:
Rudolf Virchow. Leipzig, 1906.
- C. Posner:
Rudolf Virchow. Berlin, 1921.
Rudolf Virchow 1821-1902. In: Geschichte der
Mikroskopie, hrsg. von A. Freund, A. Berg,
Frankfurt am Main, 1964, volume 2, pp 423-433.
Virchow. Briefe an seine Eltern 1839-1864.
Hrsg. von M. Rabl. Leipzig, 1906, 1907.
(Virchow’s letters to his parents 1839-1864).
- R. Beneke:
Rudolf Virchow. Jena, 1921. (=Beiträge
zur pathologischen Anatomie und zur allgemeinen
Pathologie, published by L. Aschoff, supplement
No. 19.)
- Karl Sudhoff:
Rudolf Virchow und die deutschen
Naturforscherversammlungen. Leipzig, 1922.
- Hans Virchow:
Die Abstammung Rudolf Virchows.
Mitteilungen zur Geschichte der Medizin, der
Naturwissenschaften und der Technik, 1933, 32:
220-222.
- Henry E. Sigerist:
Grosse Ärzte, eine Geschichte der Heilkunde
in Lebensbildern. München, 1932.
English translation by E. and C. Paul: The
Great Doctors. Garden City, New York, 1948:
319-330.
- Erwin H. Ackerknecht:
Beiträge zur Geschichte der Medizinalreform
von 1848.
Sudhoffs Archiv für die Geschichte der Medizin,
1932, 25: 61-183.
Rudolf Virchow, Doctor, Statesman,
Antrhopologist. Madison, Wisconsin, 1953.
Less a biography than an analysis of Virchow’s
ideas, works, and accomplishments.
- P. Diepgen, E. Rosner:
Zur Ehrenrettung Rudolf Virchows und der
deutschen Zellforscher.
Virchows Archiv, 1941, 307: 457-489.
- Ludwig Aschoff:
Rudolf Virchow. Hamburg, 1948.
- Hellmuth Unger:
Virchow, ein Leben für die Forschung.
Hamburg, 1953.
- Curt Froboese:
Rudolf Virchow. Stuttgart, 1953.
- E. Meyer:
Rudolf Virchow. Wiesbaden, 1956.
Rudolf Virchow, Arzt, Politiker,
Anthropologe. Stuttgart, 1957.
- Felix Bogenheim:
Virchow, Werk und Wirkung. Berlin, 1957.
- P. Diepgen:
Rudolf Virchow 1821-1902. In: Die
grossen Deutschen. Deutsche Biographie, hrsg.
von H. Heimpel, Th. Heuss, B. Reifenberg,
Berlin, 1957, volume 4, pp. 28-36.
- Wolfgang Jacob:
Medizinische Anthropologie im 19.
Jahrhundert.
- R. Bieling:
Der Hygieniker Virchow. In:
Jubilee-Volume. Rudolf Virchow Medical Society.
100 Anniversary. Festschrift z. 100-Jahr-Feier.
Hrsg. von J. Berberich u.a. Basel, New York,
1960.
- K. Panne:
Die Wissenschaftstheorie von Rudolf Virchow.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University
of Düsseldorf, 1967.
- Gerhard Hiltner:
Rudolf Virchow, ein weltgeschichtlicher
Brennpunkt im Weredegang von Naturwissenschaft
und Medizin. Stuttgart, 1970.
- E. W. Kohl:
Virchow in Würzburg. Pattensen (1976).
(= Würzburger Med hist Forsch., volume 6.
- C. Andrée:
Rudolf Virchow – Theodor Billroth. Leben und
Werk. Kiel, 1979.
Obituaries/biographical sketches:
- Sir Felix Semon (1849-1921) in British
Medical Journal, 1902, 2: 795-802.
vOskar Israel (1854-1907), Rudolph Virchow,
in Report of the Board of Regents of the
Smithsonian Institution, 1902: 641-659;
- James Joseph Walsh (1865-1942), Makers
of Modern Medicine. New York, 1915: 357-430
- Sticker, Geschichte des medizinischen
Facultäts Würzburg, pp. 647-646.
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