Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Virchow, Rudolf

VIRCHOW, RUDOLF, a German pathologist; born in Schivelbein, Pomerania, Oct. 13, 1821; studied medicine at Berlin; and early became famous as a lecturer on pathological anatomy at Berlin University. His advanced liberal opinions during the movement of 1848 induced the government to deprive him (temporarily) of his appointment. In 1849 he accepted a chair at Würzburg, where he remained seven years, returning to Berlin in the autumn of 1856 as professor in the university and director of the pathological institute attached to it. He rendered immense service to medical science by his discoveries in regard to inflammation, ulceration, tuberculosis, and numerous other morbid processes of the human body, and has had great influence on the whole of modern medicine, including hospital reform and sanitary science. In 1862 he was chosen deputy to the Prussian Diet, and became one of Bismarck's most powerful opponents in the Prussian Parliament and Reichstag, and a member of important commissions, etc. He was one of the founders of the German Anthropological Society, and an enthusiastic worker in this field, accumulating facts (partly in company with Schliemann) in Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Egypt and Nubia, etc. He was a voluminous writer, and among his important works are: “Cellular Pathology” (4th ed. 1871, translated into various languages); “Handbook of Special Pathology and Therapeutics”; “Typhoid”; “The Natural Sciences in the New National Life of Germany”; “The Freedom of Science in the Modern State.” He died at Berlin, Sept. 5, 1902.