342 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS of the proceedings of the day and that the knowledge dis- pensed therein was now his knowledge and available for prac- tical purposes. In pathology he was a pupil of Professor Arnold of Heidel- bergy who was capable of vivifying his cadavers, electrifying his pathologic tissues and illuminating his microscopic slides. The work of all of these teachers was carried on at a time when medicine was in the embryologic stage of its scientific evolution, when, in other words, its foundation as a science was being laid. Its impetus was irresistible and the indi- vidual but a factor. Those who have lived during the last fifty years have i)ar- ticipated in the most rapid advances that society has ever made. The rapid revolution has been universal. No field of human endeavor has failed to feel its impulse. But in in none has the change been greater nor the results more far- reaching than in medicine. This sketch has to do with the life of one of the men who have been forceful contributors to the changes that have been wrought in medicine and, through change in medical custom, in society at large. It is the story, so old in America, of a country boy, the son of immigrant parents, growing out of poverty and attaining great power by reason of great service. In 1879 medicine was a mystery science. The practitioners of medicine knew people well, they understood human nature, they knew disease as the patient described it, rather than as it was. They had a broad stock of general information. To their patients they were guides, counsellors, and friends in aU the emergencies of life. In their service there was much of watchful waiting and but little of active interference. In the helpful, beautiful service they rendered they were nurses as much as physicians. In 1879 Virchow was in his prime. He was teaching that it was important to know disease as disease rather than as the symptoms expressed it. He was being listened to but it can scarcely be claimed that he was influencing the practice of medicine as it revealed itself in the daily work of the ordinary doctor. The patient was not getting the benefit. What Vir-
