Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow was among the
greatest minds in medicine in the 19th century. As a result of his hard
work and determination, great strides were made in the fields of pathological
and physiological medicine. Virchow was born in Schivelbein, Pomeranian,
Prussia on October 13, 1821. (1) He attended Friederich Wilheim Institute
where he studied to become a physician with a passion for pathological
histology.
Throughout his studies, Rudolf Virchow also performed a plethora of research disproving that phlebitis was the cause of most diseases. Once he graduated from Friederich Wilheim Institute, Virchow went on to study at the University of Berlin where he became a medical doctor in 1843 (1). He was employed as an intern at Charite Hospital in Berlin but was suspended on March 31, 1849 due to his liberal view of the German government. He was championed as the founder of cellular pathology because of his extensive research that disease is created and reproduced at the cellular level of the body.
Rudolf Virchow also took on the role of educator and was appointed to the position of Chair of the Department of Pathological Anatomy at the University of Wurzburg. During his term as Chairman, attendance within the program soared from 98 students in previous years to a total of 388 students (1). He was involved in opening a school of nursing in Friederichshain Hospital and designed the new sewer system for the city of Berlin. In 1856, he was appointed as Chair of the Pathological Anatomy Department at the University of Berlin and the new Pathology Institute opened there as well (1). During the Franco-German War, Dr. Virchow also personally lead the first hospital train to the front lines to attend to injured soldiers. One of his greatest accomplishments in his career happened in 1874, when he introduced the standardized technique to perform autopsies.
Rudolf Virchow was extremely active in his community and had a passion for life-long learning. He was elected to the Berlin City Council for exclusive work in the areas of public health such as: sewage disposal, hospital architecture, improvement of meat inspection techniques and school hygiene. He reported that because of the poor housing conditions, declining milk supply and sepsis found throughout the area because of the effects of culture and class it was contributing to the high infant mortality rate in the area (1). In his opinion the Government was not living up to his expectations of taking care of the people of Germany.
He had regularly authored articles through his journal, Medicinische Reform, demanding social change from the German government, focussing largely on the idea that the profession of physicians should be unified and that medical education should have more training in clinical medicine related to diagnosis based on physiologic medicine (2). Basically, he was a forerunner in the field of primary prevention of disease: treating the symptoms before the disease set into the body. He was appointed by the Prussian government to investigate the typhus fever outbreak of 1848 in Upper Silesia. His final report annoyed government officials as he once again denounced them and laid claim that it was due to the poor social conditions. Luckily, he was not reprimanded as the government was dealing with the revolution in Berlin.
He campaigned for drastic social reform and had also contributed to the development of Anthropology as a modern science and in 1869 was a founder of the German Anthropological Society, and the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory, presiding over this body until he perished in 1902. He was also coined the “organizer of German Anthropology” (1). His studies in anthropology began with the skulls of mentally disabled people often called cretins and what developmental basis for that condition was present in the skull.
Virchow published many works including a six volume collection entitled, The Handbook of Special Pathology and Therapeutics, a paper describing one of the two earliest reports of leukemia, Die Medizinische (a weekly paper), and Archives of Pathological Anatomy and Physiology for Clinical Medicine. He was also editor of the Journal of Ethnology and Virchow’s Archiv (1).
Rudolf Virchow was not only a brilliant physician and researcher but he was a father and husband as well. In 1850 he married Rose Mayer and throughout their marriage they became parents of 6 children, three sons and three daughters (1). Rudolf Virchow was always busy attempting to better the lives of the German people. Even at the time of his death on September 5, 1902 in Berlin, Rudolf Virchow was still serving on committees and counsels and working diligently as editor of journals in medical education (1). He was constantly working to provide quality health care to his patients and fighting for the their rights with the German Government.
Bibliography:
1. “Abraham Jacobi and German Medical Radicalism in Antebellum New York.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine. http://128.220.50.88/journ…_history_of_medicine/v072/72.3viner.html (21 Sept. 2000)
2.“Virchow, Rudolf (Carl).” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=77447&sctn=1#s_top (10 Sept. 2000).
3. Photo of Rudolf Virchow http://library.utmb.edu/portraits/virchow.htm
By Wendy Dahring