RUDOLF VIRCHOW.
The world has lost one of its great men in the death of Professor Rudolf Virchow. Born on October 13, 1821, the son of a small shopkeeper and farmer in an obscure village of Pomerania, he died on September 5, known everywhere as one of the greatest if not the greatest of contemporary scientific men, having at the same time performed in his long life public services such as do not ordinarily fall to the lot of the man of science. It is not possible to recount in this place the numerous events of Virchow's career nor to describe his great contributions to science. His 'Cellular Pathology' was published in 1858; his theories and experiments having been in part printed in earlier volumes of the Archives für pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie, established by him and Reinhart in 1848. Virchow's main thesis was that the cells of the animal body propagate themselves, and that outside forces acting on the cells produce in them mechanical or chemical changes which are disease. The facts of bacteriology since discovered harmonize with this theory and do not conflict with it as has sometimes been assumed. Virchow more than any other one man established the science of pathology and made it possible for medicine to become an applied science. Only second in importance to his contributions to pathology was his work in anthropology which covered all branches of the science—physical measurements, racial differences, ethnology and even archeology. He did not oppose evolution, having indeed advocated the transmutation of species before Darwin, but he was critical in his attitude toward natural selection.
Virchow's scientific work was singularly complete. He made numerous and exact observations and experiments; he deduced from them wide-reaching theories; he conducted an important journal for more than fifty years; he wrote text-books, summaries of scientific advance and books popularizing science; he established a school to which students came from all parts of the world, while at the same time taking part in the education of the people; he founded a great museum and took a leading part in scientific societies; he applied science directly to human welfare.
It is almost incredible that among these multifarious scientific activities Virchow should have been one of the leading statesmen of his country. Here too his work was wide and long continued. He was a member of the municipal council of Berlin for more than forty years, and through him the hygienic conditions of the capital were revolutionized. He had been a member of the Prussian chamber since 1862 and was for twenty-five years chairman of the committee on finance. He was leader of the radical party in the Reichstag. In his public career he opposed centralization, autocracy and war, and advocated all measures for the welfare of the people. He was at one time compelled to leave the University of Berlin owing to his political activity, but his personality and eminence were such that he was recalled to a professorship in 1856, and he was thereafter the preeminent representative of academic freedom.
In this number of the Monthly will be found the Huxley lecture on 'Recent Advances in Science and their Bearing on Medicine and Surgery,'
