The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Virchow, Rudolf
VIRCHOW, vēr'Hō, Rudolf, German scientist:
b. Schivelbein, Prussia, 13 Oct. 1821; d.
Berlin, 5 Sept. 1902. He studied medicine in
Berlin in 1839-43, and in the latter year became
a surgeon's assistant. From 1844 to 1846 he
was assistant at the Charité Hospital, and in the
latter year he became prosector there. He
qualified in 1847 as a lecturer at the University
of Berlin, and in that year also he was
associated with Benno Reinhardt in founding the
‘Archiv für pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie
und für klinische Medizin,’ world-famous
as “Virchow's Archives,” which he
edited alone from Reinhardt's death in 1852 till
his own. He made himself known as a
pronounced democrat in the year of revolution,
1848, and his political activity caused the
government to remove him (1849) from his
prosectorship, but he was soon reinstated, and
accepted the chair of pathological anatomy at
Würzburg. In 1852 he became joint editor of
the Cannstatt reports on the progress of medicine,
which he continued in conjunction with
others till his death. In 1856 he returned to
Berlin as professor of pathological anatomy,
general pathology and therapeutics, and director
of the recently founded pathological institute.
He became a member of the Municipal
Council of Berlin in 1859, and began his career
as a civic reformer. Elected to the Prussian
Diet in 1862, he became leader of the Radical
or Progressive party; and in 1880-93 he was
a member of the Reichstag.  Virchow was a
determined opponent of Bismark's policy,
in 1865 was challenged to a duel by the “man
of blood and iron.” He exercised especial
influence in matters relating to public health, and
during the wars of 1866 and 1870-71 he took
an active part in organizing the army sanitary
services. During his membership of 40 years
in the Berlin Municipal Council he was active
in promoting the sanitary improvement of the
city. In 1870 he assisted in founding the

Deutsche und Berliner Gesellschaft für
Anthropologie, Ethnologie, und Urgeschichte, of
which he was several times president and in
1879 he made a journey to the site of Troy,
described in ‘Beiträge zur Landeskunde in
Troas’ (1879) and ‘Alttrojanische Gräber und
Schädel’ (1882). He visited England in 1893
and delivered the Croonian lecture to the Royal
Society on ‘The Place of Pathology in Biological
Studies,’ receiving on the occasion the
honorary degree of D.C.L. from Oxford. In 1898
he delivered the Huxley lecture in London, his
subject being ‘Recent Advances in Physiology.’

Virchow was the founder of cellular pathology,
was scarcely less distinguished in archæology
and anthropology and was the author of
many important works, among which are
‘Handbuch der speciellen Pathologie und
Therapie’ (1854-76), prepared in collaboration
with others; ‘Vorlesungen über Cellularpathologie
in ihrer Begründung auf physiologischer
und pathologischer Gewebelehre’ (1859), his
chief work, forming in the 4th edition the first
volume of ‘Vorlesungen über Pathologie’
(1862-71); ‘Vier Reden über Leben und Kranksein’
(1862); ‘Ueber den Hungertyphus’
(1868); ‘Ueber einige Merkmale niederer
Menschenrassen am Schädel’ (1875); ‘Beiträge zur
physischen Anthropologie der Deutschen’
(1876); ‘Die Freiheit der Wissenschaft im
Modernen Staat’ (1877); ‘Gesammelte Abhandlungen
aus dem Gebiete der offentlichen Medizin
und der Seuchenlehre’ (1879), etc. It was in
fulfilment of the desires of Virchow that the
German government erected in Berlin the
Pathological Institute and Museum, the greatest
institution of its kind in the world. Consult his
‘Life’ by Beecher (1801), and Pagel's ‘Rudolph
Virchow’ (Leipzig 1906).