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Prof. Rudolf Virchow. The Position of [Mar. 16,. 



It would lead us too far to illustrate this with examples drawn from 

 the entire past. It is enough for my present purpose to take the out- 

 lines of modern medicine as the object of our consideration. Such a 

 sketch, cursory as it must be, oug'ht at the same time to throw some 

 light on the intellectual relations of both nations, English and 

 German, for these have taken a prominent part in establishing the 

 principles of modern medicine. 



The downfall of the old medicine, the so-called humoral pathology, 

 was brought about in the beginning of the 16th century. We, in 

 Germany, are inclined to attribute to ourselves a decisive role in this 

 memorable struggle. 



It was a man of our race, Andreas Vesalius (or of Wesel), wha 

 transformed anatomy into an exact science, and who thus, at one 

 stroke, created for medicine a solid foundation, which it has retained 

 ever since and which, let us hope, it will never again lose. 



But the principal blow to the old medicine, was struck by his 

 somewhat elder contemporary Paracelsus, that charlatan, yet gifted 

 physician, who removed from among the beliefs of mankind the 

 doctrine of the four humores, which, quasi- chemical in its construc- 

 tion, formed the basis of the old pathology. Strangely enough, he 

 accomplished this with weapons borrowed from the armoury of the 

 Arabs, the successors of the Greeks, and the chief representatives of 

 the mediaeval humoral pathology. From them, also, he borrowed 

 alchemy, and, at the same time, the fantastic spiritualism of the 

 East, which found a clear expression in his doctrine of the 

 " Archceus," as the determining force in all living beings. 



In this way, the new medicine, at its very birth, absorbed the 

 germs of that ruinous antagonism, which, even up to the present 

 century, has kept up the embittered strife of the Schools. 



To Vesalius is due the exact spirit of inquiry which starts from 

 the observation of actual conditions, and which, without further 

 definition, we may call the anatomical. 



Paracelsus, who pronounced the anatomy of the dead body to be 

 useless, and sought for the basis of life as the highest goal of know- 

 ledge, demanded " contemplation " before all else ; and, just as he 

 himself arrived in this way at the metaphysical construction of the 

 archsei, so he let loose among his followers a wild and absolutely 

 fruitless mysticism. 



Nevertheless there lay hidden in that " contemplation " of his a 

 healthy kernel, which would not allow the intellectual activity which 

 it had stirred up to sink to rest. It was the idea of life, which formed 

 the ultimate problem for all future research. Strangely enough, 

 this idea, which always existed in the popular mind, and which is 

 in an unmistakable form present even amongst primitive nations, had 

 in scholastic medicine been driven far into the background. Ever 



