October 21, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



549 



The second Huxley lecture given by Professor 

 Kudolf Virchow at the opening of the Charing 

 Cross Hospital, on October 3d, entitled ' Recent 

 Advances in Science and their bearing on Medi- 

 cine and Surgery,' was of great interest both to 

 men of science and physicians. If space permit 

 it will be republished later in this Journal. 

 Professor Virchow was given a complimentary 

 dinner on October 5th, the chair being occupied 

 by Lord Lister. Speeches were made by Lord 

 Lister and Professor Virchow, as also by Sir W. 

 Broadbent, Surgeon-General Jameson, Sir 

 Samuel Wilkes, Sir William MacCormack, Pro- 

 fessor Chiene and Sir William Turner. Professor 

 Virchow was expecting to be present at the 

 ceremonies in connection with the opening of 

 the Thompson-Yates Laboratory at Liverpool 

 on October 8th. 



The following details regarding the life of 

 Professor Virchow, taken from The British Medi- 

 cal Journal, may be of interest : Rudolph Lud- 

 wig Karl Virchow, to give him his full comple- 

 ment of names, was born on October 13, 1821, 

 at Schivelbein, a small town in Farther Pomer- 

 ania. He received his early education in the 

 gymnasium of Coslin, where he was thoroughly 

 grounded in the Latin and Greek languages, 

 and where also he learnt Hebrew so well that 

 he took it up as a voluntary subject at his 

 Abiturientenexamen, which he passed in 1839. 

 In the same year he entered the Friedrich Wil- 

 helm Institute, for the training of army sur- 

 geons, in Berlin. At this medico-military acad- 

 emy — from which have come at different times 

 many men of the highest distinction, such as 

 ]Srothnagel,Leyden, Hueppe, Loeffler, Gaertner, 

 Schmidt-Rimpler, Fraentzel and others — Vir- 

 chow had Hermann von Helmholtz among his 

 fellow students. Among his teachers were 

 Johannes Miiller, Schoenlein, Dieflfenbach and 

 Casper. The teacher who most influenced him 

 was Miiller, who, in Virchovv's own words, 

 ' founded no school in the sense of dogmas, for 

 he taught none, but only in the sense of method. ' 

 Virchow took his Doctor's degree in 1843, his 

 inaugural thesis bearing the title 'De Rheumate 

 prsesertim Cornse.' Soon after graduation he 

 was appointed Prosector in the Charite Hospital 

 where he laid the foundations of his future fame 



as a pathologist. In 1848 his name first be- 

 gan volitare per ora in consequence of his be- 

 ing sent to investigate a severe epidemic of 

 typhus in Upper Silesia. The report which 

 Virchow presented on that occasion was not 

 only a masterpiece of scientific investigation, 

 but marked him out as a man of the most en- 

 lightened philanthropy. What he saw in the 

 course of that inquiry converted him to Rad- 

 icalism, a political creed which he has ever since 

 professed. He insisted strongly on the neces- 

 sity of social as well as sanitary reform for the 

 prevention of evils such as came under his no- 

 tice in Silesia. On his returning to Berlin, 

 while continuing to add new truths to the new 

 science of pathology which he was creating, he 

 was very active as a reformer of society in gen- 

 eral and of his own profession in particular. 

 In conjunction with a kindred spirit he founded 

 a journal entitled Die medicinische Reform, in 

 which the wrongs and grievances of the profes- 

 sion in Germany were discussed in a remark- 

 ably outspoken manner. This periodical ceased 

 to exist on Dr. Virchow being called to occupy 

 the chair of pathology in the University of 

 Wiirzburg, in 1849. At Wiirzburg he remained 

 seven years, his fame meanwhile spreading over 

 the whole world, so that when a vacancy in the 

 corresponding chair at Berlin occurred, in 1856, 

 he was appointed to it in the teeth of strong 

 political opposition. It would be out of place 

 here to attempt to give even a summary of his 

 scientific achievements. It is sufficient to recall 

 that his great work, ' Die Cellularpathologie in 

 ihrer Begriindung auf physiologische und pa- 

 thologische Gewebelehre,' began to appear in 

 1855. In that work the far-reaching doctrine 

 Oiniiis cellula a celluld was enunciated, and from 

 this ' cell ' has come the long and splendid 

 series of its author's later contributions to 

 knowledge. In 1858 appeared Virchow's other 

 great work, 'Die krankhaften Geschwiilste.' 

 Reference should also be made to his famous 

 Archiv, which a year or two ago celebrated the 

 jubilee of its foundation, and which still stands 

 in the front rank of publications devoted en- 

 tirely to scientific medicine. A list of his 

 writings would occupy several pages of this 

 Journal. Among Virchow's great works may 

 be counted his famous museum, which, when 



