HAMILTON SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION. 61 



down and caseate. He looked upon the infiltrated areas of 

 lung tissue which we now know to be tubercular, as some- 

 thing entirely apart from these and of a different pathological 

 origin. Nevertheless, he accepted Buhl's views that caseous 

 matter was infective and could produce tubercles, and that in 

 this way the eruption of secondary tubercles around l^reaking 

 down areas in the lung was to be produced. 



Those of you who know anything of the life of this great 

 man would perhaps marvel that he should thus get astray, and 

 for those of \ ou unacquainted with his work and his achieve- 

 ments during the major portion of a century of time I shall 

 venture this epitome \)y his friend, the venerable Jacobi, still 

 hale and hearty, witli the weight of nearly 80 years : — 



"The greatest, however, of all the gigantic intellects, and at the 

 same time a humanitarian of a world-wide horizon, was Rudolf Virchow. 

 We all have lost in him a friend, for he was a friend and benefactor of 

 mankind. In the history of our piofession, aye, in that of mankind, 

 there is no man in whom a vast intellect was blended with a warm heart 

 to the same degree. There never was so great a statesman in our ranks. 

 At the age of 28 years the Prussian Government sent him to Upper 

 Silesia to study the petechial typhus, which was devastating the 

 country. In his report he pictured the nosology and pathological 

 anatomy as it had never been done before, but also its etiology, viz.: — 

 The governmental neglect of the inhabitants which extended over 

 centuries; their poverty, ignorance, filth, the moral and intellectual 

 tyranny of the hierarchy, the economic subjugation both of the Prussian 

 bureaucracy and of the effete feudalism. He urged medication and 

 sanitation, but more eagerly social reforms, culture, liberty and com- 

 fort, unlimited democracy, education in public schools, agricultural 

 institutions, care aud education of the numerous orphans, building of 

 roads, and the general recognition of the fact that, as he expressed 

 himself, 'our century is the beginning of a new social era.' What 

 happened ? Was he applauded ? Decorated ? Rewarded ? In accord- 

 ance with Prussian methods he was deprived of most of his public 

 positions! Then in the first numVjer of a new journal he said: 'The 

 physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and the social problem 

 should largely be solved by them ; and in the last : The medical 

 reform we contemplated was to be a reform of science and of society.' 

 With this early programme he filled his rich life. He addressed 

 hundreds of popular meetings, edited a thousand popular essays, looked 

 after the sanitation of schools and civic and military hospitals, made 

 Berlin a healthy city, and in parliament aided the liberal movement in 

 Germany. There never was a man who more than he deserved the 



