December 4, 1891.] 



SCIENCE. 



3'9 



' Ilios ' contains some very interesting material. But what has 

 engageii my attention and interest most has been to observe the 

 humanity and indefatigability displayed by the great man in the 

 service of the poor and sick. To read of his constant, practical 

 exertions in behalf of the miserable population of Hissarlik ; how 

 he taught the aborigines the efficacy of chamomile and juniper, 

 which grow about them, unnoticed and unused, in rare abun- 

 dance; how a spring he laid open for archaeological purposes has 

 been called by them ' the physician's,' and is believed to have 

 beneficial effects; how he was, on leaving the neighborhood, 

 loaded with flowers, the only thing they had and knew would 

 please him, has charmed me intensely. To admire a great man 

 for his professional labors, eagerly undertaken and successfully 

 carried out, is a great satisfaction to the scientific observer; to be 

 able to love him, in addition, for his philanthropy and warm- 

 heartedness, is a feast of the soul." 



Virchow"s life work has been the study of the processes of dis- 

 ease, and in the profession we revere him as the greatest master 

 that has appeared among us since John Hunter. There is another 

 aspect of his work which has been memorable for good to his na- 

 tive city. From the day when, as a young man of twenty-seven, 

 he was sent by the Prussian Government to Upper Silesia to study 

 the typhus epidemic, then raging among the half-starved popula- 

 tion, he has been one of the most powerful advocates in Germany 

 for sanitary reform ; and it is not loo much to say that it is largely 

 to his efforts that the city of Berlin ovres its magnificent system 

 of drainage. His work in this department has been simply monu- 

 mental, and characterized by the thoroughness which marks the 

 specialist. 



To his exhaustive monographs on camp diseases, cholera, mili- 

 tary medicine, and other cognate subjects, I cannot even refer. 



It will be gruerally acknowledged that in this country doctors 

 arc, as a rule, bad citizens, taking little or no interest in civic, 

 state, or national politics. Let me detain you a moment or two 

 longer to tell of one of us, at least, who, in the midst of absorbing 

 pursuits, has found time to serve his city and his country. For 

 more than twenty years Virchow has sat in the Berlin City Coun- 

 cil as an alderman, and to no feature in his extraordinary life does 

 the Berliner poin with more justifiable pride. It is a combination 

 of qualities only too rare, when the learned professor can leave 

 his laboratory and take his share in practical, municipal work. 

 How much his colleagues have appreciated his efforts has been 

 shown by his election as vice president of the Board; ano on the 

 occasion of the celebration in 1881, the Rathhaus was not only 

 placed at the disposal of the committee, but the expenses of the 

 decorations, etc, were met by the council; and to-day comes 

 word by cable that he has been presented with the freedom of the 

 city. 



The years succeeding to Virchow's student days were full of 

 strong political feeling, and with the French Revolution in 1848, 

 came a general awakening. In Germany the struggle for repre- 

 sentative government attracted many of the ardent spirits of 

 our profession, and it was then that Virchow began his political 

 career. The revolution was a failure, and brought nothing to the 

 young prosector but dismissal from his public positions. His 

 participation might have been condoned had he not issued a 

 medico-political journal. Die Medieinische Reform, the numbers 

 of which are even now very interesting reading, and contain ideas 

 which to-day would be called liberal, but were then revolutionary. 

 It is a striking evidence of the deep impression which even at that 

 time Virchow had made upon his colleagues and the profession, 

 that he was reinstated in his office at the urgent solicitation of the 

 medical societies of the city. He relates in his " Gedachtnissrede 

 auf SchOnlein," who was the court physician and not at all in har- 

 mony with the views of his prosector, that on one occasion in 

 1848, at a post-mortem, in which the diagnosis of hemorrhage into 

 the brain had been made by the professor, Virchow demonstrated 

 an obstructing embolus in the artery. Schonlein turned to him 

 iu a half vexed, half joking manner and said, " Sie sehen auch 

 ueberall Barrikaden." His active political life dates from 1862, 

 when he was elected to the lower house from one of the Berlin 

 districts, and has, I believe, sat as member almost continuou4y 

 from that date. The conditions in Germany have not been favor- 



able to a man of advanced liberal views, and Virchow has been 

 attached to a party which has not been conspicuously successful ; 

 but he has been an honest and industrious worker, a supporter of 

 all measures for the relief of the people, a strenuous opponent of 

 all cliss and repressive legislaiion, and above all an implacable 

 enemy of absolutism as personified in Bismarck. A man of such 

 strong individuality would make his presence felt in any assembly; 

 and he always commanded the attention of his colleagues, and 

 oftentimes his speeches have been reported fully both in England 

 and in America. 



As an illustration of his capacity for varied work, I recall one day 

 in 18S4, in which he gave the morning demonstration and lecture 

 at the Pathological Institute, addressed the Town Council at great 

 length on the extension of the canalization scheme, and made a 

 budget speech in the House, both of which were reported at great 

 length in the papers of the next day. 



Naturally, amid such diverse occupations, it has been impos- 

 sible for him to enter with his old vigor into the minutiae of 

 pathological anatomy, and his attitude of late years has been 

 critical rather than productive; but his interest in all that pertains 

 to our profession is unabated, and is a feature of his character to 

 which I must allude. Too often with us, in our gatherings and 

 society meetings, the "men of rathe and riper years" are con- 

 spicuoas by their absence. In this respect our great master has 

 set a notable example. Amid cares and worries, social and politi- 

 cal, with a thousand and one ties and duties, he has never held 

 aloof from his brethren ; but, as the weekly medical journals tes- 

 tify, no man in Berlin has been more active, and for years he has 

 held the presidency of the Berliner Medieinische Gesellschaft, one 

 of the most important medical societies of Europe. 



Surely the contemplation of a life so noble in its aims, so notable 

 in its achievements, so varied in its pursuits, may well fill us with 

 admiration for the man, and with pride that he is a member of 

 our profession. The influence of his work has been deep and far- 

 reaching, and in one way or another has been felt by each one of 

 us. It is well to acknowledge the debt which we every-day prac- 

 titioners owe to the great leaders and workers in the scientific 

 branches of our art. We dwell too much in corners, and, con- 

 sumed with the petty cares of a bread-and-butter struggle, forget 

 that outside of our routine lie Elysian fields into which we may 

 never have wandered, the tillage of which is not done by our 

 hands, but the fruiis of which we of the profession (and you of the 

 public) fully and freely enjoy. The lesson which should sink 

 deepest in our heai'ts is the answer which a life, such as Virchow's, 

 gives to those who to-day, as in past generations, see only pills and 

 potions in the profession of medicine, and who, utilizing the gains 

 of science, fail to appreciate the dignity and the worth of the 

 methods by which they are attained. As Pausanias pestered 

 Empedocles, even to the end, for the details of the cure of Pan- 

 theia, so there are with us still those who, " asking not wisdom, 

 but drugs to charm with," are impatient at the slow progress of 

 science, forgetting that the chaos from which order is now appear- 

 ing has been in great part dispelled by the work of one still living 

 — by the man whom to night we delight to honor. 



BOOK-REVIEWS. 



Across Russia from the Baltic to the Danube, By Chaeles 

 Augustus Stoddaed. New York, Scribner. 8°. |1.50. 



Stoddard's journey, the story of which is told in this volume, 

 began at Paris, and extended through Sweden and Finland, to 

 Russia, which he entered at Cronstadt. Much time was spent at 

 St. Petersburg, and then the journey was resumed to Moscow, to 

 which again much attention was given. The closing chapters of 

 the book contain the account of what the author saw, or thought, 

 while he was at Nijni-Novgorod, or was joui'neying west through 

 Warsaw, the Carpathian Mountains, and Hungary, to Buda- 

 Pesth. 



The book is the narrative of one who knows how to make 

 the stories of his wanderings entertaining. The style is that of a 

 conversationalist rather than of the writer. Skipping along lightly 

 from one topic to another, the author almost seems before you 

 armed with stereopticon views of the scenes he is describing. And 



