RUDOLPH VIRCHOW, 1821-1H02. 645 



for which he was .still lia])le." Not 3"et 26 yciirs of aoc, Yirchow had 

 now the opportunity of developing his powers in his own way. 



The position of demonstrator of anatomy had grown up from a 

 rather slender ])eginning. The somewliat infrecjuent opportunities of 

 confirming and broadening diagnosis by post-mortem examination had 

 ])een almost exclusively coniined, during the eighteenth century and 

 the first third of the nineteenth, to the physicians to whom the care of 

 the patient had l)een committed. Only of late had tlie need l)ecome 

 apparent of physicians specially prepared for this purpose. The first 

 demonstrator who had ])een attached to tlie hospital stafi' was 1*. Pholjus, 

 but he remained little more than a year in this t-apacity" and had 

 resigned because he could not defend himself from the occasional 

 encroachments of a military surgeon. He was succeeded l)y Robert 

 Froriep, w^ho was appointed, on December 22, 1881, as "Demon- 

 strator, illustrator, and curator of pathological preparations at the 

 Royal Charity Hospital.'' There were set apart for his use only a 

 room and In^d chaml)er, and it was not till ls;U that upon a detailed 

 memorial of Froriep's to the ministry, in which he stated clearly and 

 at considerable length the pressing need of it, that a good microscope 

 was procured. A single attending nurse, Frau Vogelgesang, was, at 

 the time Virchow succeeded Froriep. the most important personage in 

 the administration of the little realm. In the occasional corres])ond- 

 ence relating to the purchase of improvements or to other internal 

 arrangements her signature was never lacking, l)ut appeared together 

 with those of the physicians and hospital director. The considerable 

 reputation which ''Madam Vogelgesang'' enjoyed far l)eyon(l the 

 boundaries of (Termany was due to her great skill in dissecting opera- 

 tions.'' At first a voluntary assistant, Virchow was soon intrusted by 

 the management of the charity hospital with the chemical and micro- 

 scopic investigations necessary for the sick wards. These duties, now' 

 divided in all great hospitals ])etween special laboratories with trained 

 personnel, w^ere very extensive and lal)orious, l)ut witli characteristic 

 energy and inspired by an illustrious exam})le, \ irchow soon show^ed 

 a complete conunand of the situation. He saw in a comlMuation of 

 chemical with anatomical researches the possibility of attaining an 

 object of capital importance — namely, the cnnition of a pathologic 

 physiology as the r(\sult of prearranged studies in anatomy and 

 patholog}', combined witii experimental i)athologv and clicmical expe- 

 rience. This experimentally founded science he sought losubslilute 

 for the confused speculation then ruling (xcM-man medical })racticc. 



The intense activity of the young savant in the dissecting looni of 



«Two years later Ilelmholtz, who had attained tlie rank ni staff sinuc<iii in tiic mil- 

 itary service, received hi.s din('har<i;e in the same fdim. 



^See Perogow. Life questions. Diary of an old pliysician. trum tiic Knssian, 

 by August Fischftr, Stuttgart, LS94, p. 40:;i'. 



