Page:The Last link.djvu/106

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THE LAST LINK

processes of pathology has done more than his most brilliant observations to make the science of disease.

'In pathology, strictly so called, his two great achievements—the detection of the cellular activity which lies at the bottom of all morbid as well as normal physiological processes, and the classification of the important group of new growths on a natural histological basis—have each of them not only made an epoch in medicine, but have also been the occasion of fresh extension of science by other labourers' (Proc. Royal Soc., 1892).

Virchow has not confined himself to medicine. He takes the keenest interest in anthropology and ethnology, on which subjects he has contributed many papers. Together with his colleagues Helmholtz the physicist, and Du Bois Reymond the physiologist, he has taken a leading place in the spreading of natural science; but, unfortunately, he did not take to the doctrine of