PROFESSOR RUDOLF VIRCHOW. 837 



terests of the city of Berlin, and as a brave and outspoken parlia- 

 mentary leader on the side of liberality and progress. 



Professor Virchow was born at Schievelbein, in Pomerania, on the 

 13th of October, 1821. He studied medicine at the Frederick- Wil- 

 helms Institute in Berlin, and was graduated in that faculty from the 

 University of Berlin in 1843. He was made prosector of the Charite 

 Hospital in 1846, and in the following year was appointed a regular 

 lecturer in the university. In 1848 he was commissioned by the Gov- 

 ernment to visit Upper Silesia and study the typhus fever which was 

 prevailing there as an epidemic, the result of misery and starvation. 

 His report on this subject commanded attention at once, and is still 

 held in high esteem by the medical profession and by all who are con- 

 cerned with sanitary science. 



To this period of Virchow's life belongs the establishment of the 

 " Archiv f tir pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie und f iir Kli- 

 nische Medicin," which was founded by Virchow and Bernhardt in 

 1848, and has been continued by Virchow since Reinhardt's death in 

 1852 ; and of the "Medical Reform," which he conducted in connec- 

 tion with Leubuscher in 1848 and 1849. The " Archiv" is still con- 

 tinued, under Virchow's direction, and is recognized as one of the 

 chief and authoritative medical jou^xials of the world. To this period 

 belongs also his entrance into active political life on the awakening of 

 his republican enthusiasm by the revolutionary movements of 1848 

 and 1849. He formed a democratic club, became a popular orator, 

 and was elected to a seat in the National Assembly, to which, how- 

 ever, he was not admitted, because he had not yet reached the age of 

 eligibility. The reaction came on, and Herr Virchow, whose partici- 

 pation in the revolutionary movement was not agreeable to the pow- 

 ers whom it displaced for a time, and who had the control of the pub- 

 lic positions he held, was removed from his lectureship. He could 

 not, however, stay dispossessed ; the medical societies insisted upon 

 his recall, and he was reinstated by the force of his obvious fitness 

 for his position. He accepted an invitation to the chair of Patho- 

 logical Anatomy at the University of Wtlrzburg, and removed there. 

 The Government, however, could not spare him from Berlin, and Herr 

 Manteuffel called him back to his old chair in the university in 1856. 

 He then became director of the newly founded Pathological Institute, 

 and soon raised it to the first rank among such establishments, and 

 made it a center of independent investigations for numerous young 

 students. While at Wtirzburg he published his " Collection of Con- 

 tributions to Scientific Medicine," of which the leading paper, on " The 

 Movement in Favor of Unity in Scientific Medicine," which, previ- 

 ously published separately, had already attracted much attention from 

 the scientific world, revealed the tendencies and direction of thought 

 by which his subsequent career was to be determined. Professor Vir- 

 chow's most distinguished services to science have been given in the 



