With the Compliments of the Author. 
RUDOLF VIRCHOW. 
AN ADDRESS, 
Introductory to the Course of Lectures 
of the Teem, 1881-82. 
BY 
CLINICAL PROFESSOR OF DISEASES OF CHILDREN. 
A. JACOBI, M.D., 
/ 
R-eprinted from The Medical Record, October 22, ’lBBl. 
TROW’S PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING CO., 
NEWYORK: 
201-213 East 12th Street. 
1881. RUDOLF VIRCHOW. 
AN ADDRESS, 
Introductory to the Course of Lectures 
of the Term, 1881-82. 
BY 
A. JACOBI, M.D., 
CLINICAL PROFESSOR OF DISEASES OF CHILDREN. 
Reprinted from The Medical Record, October 23, 1881. 
TROW’S PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING CO., 
NEWYORK: 
201-313 East 12th Street. 
1881. RUDOLF VIRCHOW. 
An Address, Introductory to the Course of Lec- 
tures of the Term, 1881-1882.* 
Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Faculty, Fellow-Prac- 
titioners, and Fellow-Students—The bust exhibited 
here, and the portrait shown, are those of Rudolf 
Virchow. His name is familiar to all. His renown 
as a great scientist is older than probably any stu- 
dent in this hall, of as long duration as the life of 
many a practitioner of great skill and deserved repu- 
tation, and has been firmly established so long as to 
have accompanied the oldest of us through the best 
and most efficient part of our career. Him I se- 
lected for the subject of our conversation this even- 
ing. In my opinion there is nothing we can learn 
so much from as from the life of a great man. If 
that man be dead, his biography is a source of val- 
uable instruction and admiring appreciation; if he 
be among the living, and known not to have spent 
a day of his life except in the service of science and 
mankind, he is deserving of being extolled to the 
young—and old too—as a praiseworthy example. 
And if he can be shown to unite with the accom- 
plishments of a savant the traits of genius, a univer- 
sality of interests, and the beauties of a manly and 
refined nature; and further, if it can be demon- 
strated that no man in old or modern time crowded 
more successful scientific work into one lifetime, 
that man ought to stand out before the eyes of the 
young man entering upon the study of medicine as 
his guiding-star, as his ideal. For an ideal it is 
which the young want and require. Fortunate are 
* Delivered in the lectnre-room of the College o£ Physicians and 
Surgeons, New York, October, 3, 1881. 4 
those who look for theirs among the best and most 
perfect. 
Rudolf Virchow was born on October 13, 1821, 
in a little Pomeranian town—Schivelbein—in North- 
ern Germany. In 1843 he graduated in medicine 
at the University of Berlin. In 1846 he was made 
prosector of the Oharite Hospital, and controlled 
in that position the whole anatomical material of 
that great institution. His facilities he utilized at 
once in delivering courses of lectures on the sub- 
ject of pathological anatomy. In 1847 he was ap- 
pointed a regular lecturer in the University. In the 
same year, together with Eeinhardt, who died in 1852, 
he founded his Archiv for Pathological Anatomy and 
Physiology and for Clinical Medicine, which has since 
completed its eighty-fifth volume. 
In 1848 the Government sent him to Upper Sile- 
sia to study the typhus fever begotten by the misery 
and starvation of a vast population. His report was 
a masterpiece, containing close observations both of 
medical and social facts, highly valued by the pro- 
fession, and, like his later book on the misery in the 
Spessart Mountains, by those in power and respon- 
sibility. 
In 1849, together with Leubuscher, who also died 
young and too soon, like Reinhardt, he edited the 
Medical Peform. The ideas proclaimed by him, 
and his participation in the liberal tendencies of 
the revolutionary movement of 1848 were disliked 
by the Government. He was dismissed from his 
public positions. But the medical societies of the 
city were so unanimous in their efforts to retain him 
that he was reinstalled; for there is, after all, one 
force more powerful and influential than swords and 
cartridges, even in soldier-stricken Germany, viz., 
public opinion. Still he did not remain long in 
Berlin, but accepted the Chair of Pathological Anat- 
omy in the University of Wurzburg, which he held 
until 1856, when he returned to Berlin in the same 
capacity. 
Before he left Wurzburg, he published his “Col- 
lection of Contributions to Scientific Medicine. ” 
(Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1856). His celebrated papers 5 
on “ The Movement in Favor of Unity in Scientific 
Medicine,” first published in 1849, head the list. I 
shall simply mention the titles of the rest in order 
to recall to the older gentlemen in this audience the 
great revolutions in physiological and pathological 
knowledge which have taken place in our lifetime. 
There are his essays on “ The Physical and Chemi- 
cal Properties,” the “ Metamorphosis,” the “ Origin 
and the Coagulation of Fibrine,” all of them writ- 
ten in 1845 and after. There are his celebrated pa- 
pers on “ White Blood-Corpuscles ” and “Leukae- 
mia,” dated 1845 and after, and his five hundred 
pages on “Thrombosis and Embolism,” “Inflam- 
mations of Blood-Vessels,” and “ Septic Infection,” 
dated from 1846 to 1853; also “ Contributions to 
Gynecology,” with papers on the “ Puerperal Con- 
dition ” (1847); the “Formation of the Placenta” 
(1853); “ Uterine Flexions ” (1850); “ Prolapse of 
the Uterus” (1846); and “Extra-Uterine Preg- 
nancy ” (1850-56) ; on the “ Elimination of Uric 
Acid in the Foetus and Newly Born ” (1846); “ Con- 
genital Hydronephrosis” (1854); and on “Apoplexy 
in the Newly Born (1850); “ Contributions to the 
Pathology of the Skull and Brain,” which contain 
papers on the “ Granular Appearance of the Walls 
of Cerebral Ventricles” (1846); on “Cretinism” 
(1851 and 1852); on the “ Development of Creti- 
nism ” and “ Cranial Deformities,” on the “ New 
Formation of Gray Cerebral Substance” (1851); and 
on “ Senile Involution of Flat Bones ” (1852); finally, 
a “Paper on Cancroids and Papillomata” (1850). 
About the same time he was active with other 
problems. The “Collection of Treatises connected 
with State Medicine and Epidemiology” (Berlin, 
1879), contain a number of papers written at that 
time. The two volumes treat in scores of different 
articles, written between 1848 and 1879, on subjects 
connected with public hygiene, reform of medicine, 
epidemics and endemics, statistics of morbility and 
mortality, hospitals, military medicine, cleaning of 
cities, school hygiene, criminal law, and forensic 
medicine. 
However, when Virchow’s name is mentioned, it is 6 
customary to think of him first as a great discoverer 
on the field of pathological anatomy. 
Pathological anatomy is that part of pathology 
■which treats of the origin, development, and nature 
of such changes in the solid and liquid parts of the 
body as constitute disease. The changes most thor- 
oughly and profoundly studied, were, in the begin- 
ning, the gross and macroscopical, afterward the 
morphological ones, inclusive or exclusive of patho- 
logical chemistry, which is still younger than path- 
ological anatomy proper. If I speak of origin, 
development, and nature of changes, I characterize 
the science as it is to-day. For neither Theophil 
Bonetus, who, in 1675, collected the three thousand 
post-mortem examinations recorded for tw7o thou- 
sand years past, nor Morgagni, in his celebrated 
book on “The Seats and Causes of Diseases studied 
Anatomically” (1761), nor Bichat (1801), with his 
attempts at studying the diseased tissues, nor Aloys 
Vetter (1803), in his “ Aphorisms from Pathological 
Anatomy,” nor the first prosector, Biermayer, of the 
Allgemeine Krankenhaus, in Vienna—founded by 
Emperor Joseph, Saluti et Solatia—nor his suc- 
cessor Wagner, considered anything but the com- 
pleted changes of the organs. Wagner’s successor 
in the place, which was founded on the 26th of June, 
1812, was Carl Rokitanski. 
To estimate at its full value the influence ex- 
erted by him, let us consider the facilities for 
diagnosis at those times by choosing an example 
from the large class of fevers. There were catar- 
rhal fevers, with the symptoms of a slight catarrh 
prevailing; when muscles or joints ached, the fever 
was catarrho-rheumatie or rheumatic; when the 
gastric symptoms prevailed, it was gastro-catarrhal 
or gastro-rheumatic ; with a yellow tongue and pain 
in the right epigastrium, it was bilious, or gastro- 
bilious, or bilious-rheumatic ; with prevailing head- 
ache or delirium, it was gastric-nervous, or bilio- 
nervous-rheumatie. There was no end of complica- 
tion of terms, just as little as there can be an end to 
the complication of symptoms. That was a time in 
which nothing better could be done. Most diseases 7 
were estimated from the nature of either the sub- 
jective or the most superficial objective symptoms of 
the pulse, the tongue, etc. It was exactly the period 
in which even the Hahnemannian system, school, sect, 
was just as easy of existence as any other system, 
school, sect, or self-styled scientific silliness. Eoki- 
tanski’s great function was to find, as Andral had 
done shortly before him—to proclaim louder and 
more effectually than Andral ever succeeded in doing, 
that disease meant a change of structure and not of 
sensations and symptoms, and to point out, as Vir- 
chow happily expresses it, “ a number of natural and 
easily recognizable types of disease.” If I call your 
attention, by a simple example, to typhoid fever, 
which Rokitanski installed as an anatomical entity, 
instead of the nervous, and bilio-nervous, and gas- 
tric, and what-not fevers, you have at once an in- 
stance of the blessing conveyed by one great man 
on both the anatomist and the physician. He 
proved that the most various symptoms can depend 
on the very same or similar anatomical changes, 
and could prove that sometimes the same or similar 
symptoms might depend on different conditions. 
Thus, the similarity of many symptoms in typhoid 
fever and acute tuberculosis gave rise to many er- 
rors, many studies, until Skoda’s skill and genius 
solved the grave problem of differential diagnosis. 
To treat of Eokitanski’s merits fully is not appro- 
priate to-night. His place in the history of medi- 
cine is secure. But still he will not appear—nobody 
will—as the last and unimpeachable judge in all 
matters anatomical and histological. On the con- 
trary, his labors, as laid down in the first volume of 
his pathological anatomy, were undertaken, and in 
part finished, during the time in which Schwann 
first found all animal tissue to consist of cells. 
Thus, the histology even in his second volume (1846) 
is of inferior character. This is the first defect. 
His second error and that of his school is the as- 
sumption of humoral pathology in a somewhat new 
shape. The mixture (crasis) of the blood, engendered 
by the chemical examination of the blood by French 
authors such as Andral and Gavarret, was consid- 8 
ered the main cause of many general, constitutional, 
or feverish diseases. The third great mistake of 
Rokitanski was this, that he felt convinced, and 
acted upon the conviction, that his special branch 
of pathology contained everything worth knowing 
in medicine. Remember, however, he lived in the 
dissecting-room ; remember that from November 1, 
1817, to October 8, 1878, seventy thousand and 
eighty-seven post-mortem examinations were re- 
corded in Vienna. If you do, you will understand, 
and, though you deplore it, pardon the one-sidedness 
with which he considered that his efforts were 
everything required, not only for the theory, but for 
the practice of medicine. He found organs de- 
stroyed, or changed to such an extent that life was 
incompatible with that destruction or those changes. 
Where was the remedy which could have restored to 
health the organ which had caused death ? Non pos- 
sumus. Impossible. Thus he became the intellectual 
head of the so-called school of Vienna, which, while 
it increased rapidly the anatomical knowledge and 
differential diagnosis of the conditions of diseased 
organs, threw up its hands in despair when the liv- 
ing patient clamored for relief and recovery. 
Thus, the three great defects or errors of Roki- 
tanski and his school were: ignorance and regardless- 
ness of histology, the clinging to humoral pathology, 
and the therapeutical nihilism originating in Vienna 
and infecting a large portion of the practitioners of 
the world. Let us now turn to Virchow to discover 
how he dealt with these defects, errors, and diffi- 
culties. 
Before and about the' time when Rokitanski 
worked and wrote, and Virchow prepared to com- 
mence his career, medical science in Germany was 
by no means independent and self-governing. There 
was no country in Europe in which observation and 
regard for facts, and facts only, was less esteemed 
than in Germany. England had enjoyed a predilec- 
tion for pathological anatomy since John Hunter; 
Carswell had studied the elementary forms of mor- 
bid processes in his pathological anatomy (1833) ; 
physiologists such as Bell and Marshall Hall had 9 
added to the stock of positive knowledge; great 
physicians, such as Bright, Abercrombie, Hope, Wil- 
liams, and afterward Stokes, enriched special fields 
of pathology. France lived through its most bril- 
liant medical career. Never before, or after, have 
more illustrious, sober, and painstaking men worked 
in the same field with more success than those 
who sustained French medicine up to 1840 in its 
high rank. Bichat, Bayle, Dupuytren, Laennec, 
Cruveilhier, Eostan, Chomel, Gendrin, Bretonneau, 
Andral, Louis, Billard, Piorry, Magendie, and many 
others, placed French medical science far above the 
level of any other country. Meanwhile, German 
medicine was controlled by what was called philos- 
ophy, and mainly by the so-called philosophy of 
Nature. The only great philosopher of the end of 
the eighteenth century was no longer appreciated 
or understood. Immanuel Kant, with his clear intel- 
lect, his unbiassed judgment, his mathematical train- 
ing and scientific method, was forgotten or misin- 
terpreted. One hundred years ago this year, his 
“ Criticism of Pure Eeason ” made its appearance. 
This very year the orthodox churches of all sorts of 
denominations have claimed this scion of natural 
facts, of mathematical problems, this personification 
of pure reason and unfettered logic, as their own, in 
this very city of ours. We need not wonder, then, 
that neither Fichte, nor Schelling, nor Hegel, nor even 
Hegel’s greatest pupil, Feuerbach, followed the road 
opened by the unsophisticated, shrewd, far-seeing, 
untrammelled genius of Kant. Under the influence 
of the German philosophy of that whole period, 
after Kant, which has been so unintelligible that 
it was called profound, and so abstruse that it has 
procured for the whole German nation the title of 
the people of thinkers, everything in medicine not 
accepted because it was old and traditional was a mat- 
ter of speculation a priori only. The bases of specu- 
lation were premises construed by reasoning not 
founded on facts; by theories not built on experience, 
far less on experimentation. Both facts and experi- 
mentation were claimed by Virchow as the only admis- 
sible foundations of scientific medicine, no matter 10 
how long it would take to collect them or to establish 
it. At the same time he was perfectly well aware that 
the literature of the last two thousand years con- 
tained a great many available points ; nobody ever 
was more honest in collecting material and giving 
credit. Every one of his books, orations, speeches, 
essays, lectures, teems with literature carefully col- 
lected and critically judged, and proves his appre- 
ciation of the necessity of historical studies. As 
the organism of the human body cannot be under- 
stood without the knowledge of its gradual devel- 
opment, thus the present condition of medicine, or 
the present condition of a doctrine, cannot be ap- 
preciated without the history of the labors spent on 
its gradual completion, no matter whether it was 
obtained by uniform progress, or, what happens 
much more frequently, by alternations of progress 
and retarding relapses. For the history of human 
progress is, in part, the history of errors. 
The young student cannot possibly imagine, with- 
out historical studies, the condition of our knowl- 
edge as late as thirty or forty years ago. Many of 
the distinguished men here assembled—many of 
your celebrated teachers on whose lips hang your 
eager eyes, and whose every word is cautiously re- 
membered by willing ears, lived and studied in a 
time when capillaries were not known to be true ves- 
sels with a wall of their own, when the distribution 
of the peripheric nerves was not even believed by 
the most poetical imaginations, when the action of 
organic muscular fibres, with its universal influence 
on the function of every organ, was not deemed a 
possibility, and trophic nerves were not even dreamed 
of. 
The first opposition to the influence on medicine 
of the so-called philosophy of nature, was made by 
“ rational ” medicine and the “ physiological ” school 
of medicine. It was formed by such learned and 
ingenious men as Wunderlich and Eoser; it con- 
trolled the minds and influenced the action of many 
good men in the profession a number of years. At 
that time, and long after, pathology was acknowl- 
edged as only a part of physiology. At all events 11 
it had no independence of its own. Pathology was 
an appendage of the natural sciences then recog- 
nized. The emancipation of pathology, its rise into 
the number of independent sciences, with, in its 
turn, its fertilization of anatomy and physiology, 
dates from April, 1817, when Yirchow wrote on the 
standpoints in scientific medicine, in the first volume 
of the Archiv for Pathological Anatomy and Physi- 
ology and for Clinical Medicine. At that time he 
wrote as follows: 
“We ought not to deceive ourselves or each other 
in regard to the present condition of medical science. 
Unmistakably, medical men are sick of the large num- 
ber of new hypothetical systems which are thrown 
aside as rubbish only to be replaced by similar ones. 
We shall soon perceive that observation and experi- 
ments only have a permanent value. Then, not as the 
outgrowth of personal enthusiasm, but as the result 
of the labcn's of many close investigators, pathological 
physiology will find its sphere. It will prove the 
fortress of scientific medicine, the outworks of which 
are pathological anatomy and clinical research.” 
Five years afterward he could say: “ The scien- 
tific method of medical research is firmly estab- 
lished. It is not my merit to have discovered it. 
Without me it would have been found, and the new 
trail would have been followed. But I trust that 
the battle against the existing mixture of arbitrary 
rationalism apd gross empiricism, fought by the 
Archiv, in which I aided by the introduction of gen- 
etic investigation, must have contributed much in 
procuring new aims for pathology.” 
You remember that, but little more than forty 
years ago, Schleiden discovered the cell to be the 
elementary basis of the vegetable tissue. Schwann 
recognized the same element as the foundation of 
the structure of all animal tissues. A long series 
of observations and experiments convinced Yirchow 
of the continuous propagation and proliferation of 
cells within the individual. After five years of 
hesitation he published the first preparation for, or 
introduction to, his cellular pathology, in the fourth 
volume of his Archiv, and another contribution 12 
to the same, three years afterward, in the eighth 
volume. 
He proved, and all our experience proves, that 
life requires a special formation to manifest itself, 
and certain conglomerates of substance. These 
conglomerates are the cells and their compounds. 
Like the individual in its totality, the cell in its 
turn is the physical body with which the action of 
mechanical substance is connected, and within which 
the latter can retain its functions which alone justify 
the name of “life.” In the normal state of this con- 
glomerate it is mechanical substance which acts, 
and acts only on chemical and physical principles. 
The pathological process within the elements, ac- 
cording to cellular pathology, is as follows : a liv- 
ing cell is acted upon by something outside. The 
latter works a mechanical or chemical change in the 
cell. This mechanical or chemical change is dis- 
order or disease. If an action or reaction take 
place in the cell through that cause, the change is 
called irritation, the cause irritant. If no reac- 
tion take place, there is a mere lesion, or perhaps a 
paralysis. The same cause may act as either an irri- 
tant or a simple lesion, or be a source of paralysis. 
The difference of the results depends on a difference 
in the condition of different cells. This difference 
in the condition of the cell is, or rather forms, its 
predisposition. 
Cellular pathology was intended to demonstrate 
the cellular nature of all vital processes, both the 
physiological and pathological. Thus, in contradis- 
tinction to the humoral and “ solidar ” (or neuristic) 
theories handed down from almost prehistoric times, 
the unity of life in everything organic was claimed 
as a demonstrable fact, and the minute mechanics 
and chemistry of the cell were placed in victorious 
opposition to the course explanation based on the 
mechanics and chemistry of the compound mass. 
With the improved instruments, and by means of 
the newly established principle, “all medicine got 
nearer the natural processes by at least three hun- 
dred times” (Virchow). 
All medicine; for it is a peculiarity in all of Yir- chow’s researches and conclusions, that none is with- 
out its immediate results on the theory and practice 
of medicine, even on diagnosis. 
Diagnostic powers have increased with the growth 
of positive knowledge. Diseases become recognized 
as local anomalies in the same degree that the old 
humoral pathology, first objected to by Vesal and 
Paracelsus, was finally undermined in its position 
as the general explainer of physical disorders. One 
hundred years ago the diagnosis of most local dis- 
eases was a very imperfect one. A fever with dysp- 
noea, with cough or without it, was a thoracic fever— 
a pulmonary fever. When Morgagni had published 
his “ Seat and Causes of Diseases,” and Laennec and 
Dupuytren had developed more proficient means of 
diagnosis, the disease was sought for and found in 
organs—even in parts of organs. A pleurisy was 
diagnosed from a pneumonia, a pneumonia of the 
right from that of the left side, of the upper from 
that of the lower lobes. Bichat, though he could 
not prove it, yet insisted even upon the necessity of 
diagnosing the diseases of the several constituent 
tissues. 
Virchow’s cellular pathology is claimed by him as 
the consistent execution of the principles and postu- 
lates of his predecessors. The localization of disease 
is taken as a necessity. It is looked for in the small- 
est composing elements—the cells, for there is no 
organ but consists of cells or cell-production. Blas- 
toderma, protoplasma, are not characterized as some- 
thing independent, as organisms by themselves, no 
matter whether they be considered to be the changed 
condition from the blood, as the older writers would 
have it, or the shapeless, amorphous mass of the 
recent authors. The smallest organism we know of, 
and which has an independent action and a life of its 
own, changing under the influence of external irri- 
tants, is the cell. To fix the disease in a cell, or a 
group of cells, is the finest localization possible. 
As a rule, we have to deal with a group of cells, like 
the chemist, who works with and on a group of 
atoms. 
But not only does the practitioner enjoy the benefit of a diagnosis and prognosis based upon the knowl- 
edge of local organic alterations, but his therapeu- 
tics also have undergone important changes. They, 
again, are mostly due to more correct observations, 
and mainly to the experimental method which has 
been generally adopted these ten or fifteen years, in 
the study of the effects of medicines on the animal 
system or organs or tissues. Therapeutics have 
become more and more local. The hypodermic 
method has taught us that the local effect of a nar- 
cotic is so much more distinct when the remedy is 
applied to the affected part. Strychnia, injected into 
a paralyzed limb, a deficient sphincter ani, or near 
an ante mi c amblyopic retina, is much more power- 
ful than when given internally. Relations between 
certain organs and certain remedies have been dis- 
covered. Quinine has been found to affect white 
blood-corpuscles and blood-vessel nerves; ergotin 
has its specific action on unstriped muscular fibres ; 
atropia on the intestinal ganglia and on the iris; 
eserine, calabar are justly credited with local effects. 
We have remedies with specific effects on the mus- 
cle, such as salicylic acid; on the nerves, on the brain 
or spinal cord ; we use the faradic and continuous 
currents for local purposes ; influence local changes, 
pains, anomalous functions by cold, heat, moisture, 
contra-irritants ; even remedies known for their gen- 
eral effects alone are used for the purpose of reach- 
ing local changes. For not only is mercurial plaster 
used for the purpose of dissolving local indurations, 
mercury is given internally for the purpose of influ- 
encing local gummata; iodine in order to remove 
local periosteal swellings, or chronic local adenitis. 
By becoming experimental, therapeutics have become 
sound, not only for the benefit and in the interest of 
diseases, but also of surgical interferences. These 
have never been rendered so safe and innocuous by 
all the accumulated experience of justly celebrated 
operators, of justly condemned wars, as by the theo- 
retical reasoning of a living English surgeon, whose 
name is on the blessing lips of every modern physi- 
cian. 
But cellular pathology does not claim to be a sj/s- 15 
tern which contains everything, but a principle. Thus 
far, every new discovery of pathological facts has 
found a ready explanation by it and its methods. 
The changes worked in and by white blood-cells, 
the transmutation of epithelial cells into benign re- 
sults or malignant growths, the influences, real or 
imaginary, worked by bacteria, have but strength- 
ened its plausibility. If there be a pathological 
entity, this entity is the cells in a state of disease. 
Despite the multifariousness of the vital processes 
in different organs, life is—no matter whether the 
cell-group, the organ, the individual, well or sick, 
are concerned—one and the same, and depending 
on the same and uniform action of the independent 
cell* 
The three volumes on morbid tumors, published 
between 1863 and 1867, are a work which might 
have filled the lifetime of a great student and thor- 
ough pathologist, and perpetuated his name in the an- 
nals of medicine. Never before was sarcoma treated 
of so extensively and monographically. Never be- 
fore was the whole literature of the subject searched 
with so much knowledge and conscientiousness. 
The etiblogy, development, and prognosis of morbid 
tumors were at last intelligibly discussed on the prin- 
ciples of cellular pathology, while even therapeutics 
were not neglected. The chapters on scrofulosis, 
tuberculosis, and syphilis, though the subjects were 
treated of in many, perhaps too many publications 
previously, exhibit new researches, new results on 
every page. The congenital deformities are always 
described in relation to the embryonic development 
of the parts, partly as arrests of development, partly 
as the results of inflammatory action. And not the 
least beauty of the great work is the fact that the 
material belonging to medicine and surgery, super- 
ficial and deep-seated organs, ophthalmology, derma- 
tology, and gynaecology, is treated of under common 
and uniform points of view. Thus, as Virchow has 
proclaimed the unity of life under the most manifold 
* See Virchow on the Essence and Causes of Disease, in his Archiv, 
vol. ixxix., in regard to many of the above statements. 16 
manifestations, he facilitates the knowledge that, after 
all, the specializing tendencies of modern medicine, 
natural and necessary though they be to a certain 
extent, admit of correction and limitation. 
The “ Investigations on the Development of the 
Basis Cranii in its Healthy and Morbid Condition, 
and its Influence on the Shape of the Skull, the For- 
mation of the Face and the Structure of the Brain ” 
(Berlin, 1857), are, as it were, a continuation of the 
essays alluded to among the contents of the “ Col- 
lection of Treatises.” They have been fruitful for 
anatomy , psychology, and pathology. The two works 
have yielded the anatomical basis of my own papers 
on the pathological and diagnostic importance of the 
premature closure of the cranial sutures and fontanel 
(1858 and 1859) and of many more important additions 
to the literature of science. For himself, these studies 
have been of the greatest importance also. On the 
base created by him, his main predecessors in this 
field being Leuret and Gratiolet, and Huschke, he 
has merged into his anthropological studies, fore- 
most among which is his book on “ Some Cranial 
Peculiarities of Lower Human Races” (1875), and 
“ Contributions to the Physical Anthropology of the 
Germans” (1876). Before these publications, how- 
ever, saw the light, his cranial studies led him into 
palaeontology and archaeology. From the beginning 
of the existence of the Anthropological and Archae- 
ological Society of Germany, he wTas a member—in 
the second year its president. Without being able 
to follow him in all these studies, I lay stress only on 
the fact that they are by no means adverse or foreign 
to strictly anatomical and medical studies. The con- 
necting link is sufficiently clear, though the liter- 
ary notes I have given must, unfortunately, be but too 
short. His paper on prehistoric tombs, and many 
others, in part published in an anthropological jour- 
nal, prove at the same time his varied interests and 
his mental powers, enabling him to combine such 
a variety of studies and occupations. 
Still, his main labors have been spent on pathol- 
ogy and subjects connected with pathological anat- 
omy. His papers on thrombosis and embolism alone 17 
would have immortalized him. They acted like a 
new revelation, by which a host of pathological oc- 
currences and processes, formerly not understood, 
became intelligible. 
The number of his other contributions to pathol- 
ogy is large. I remind you of his investigations on 
caseous and tubercular degeneration, and on diph- 
theria. What our Dr. Billings lately said in his 
London discourse is certainly true. For pathology 
we do look to Germany—he might well have said, 
to Virchow and his pupils. Never can too much 
credit be given to him—never ought he to have been 
compelled to express himself as follows : 
“ For years,” he said lately, “ I became accustomed 
to the fact that others utilize my labors. I com- 
plained of that in 1856, and have more reason now. 
Many pupils who learned the new results of my re- 
searches in my lectures have not always remained 
conscious of the source of their knowledge, and 
thus they have not always been in a condition to 
give me due credit in their publications. Ido not 
propose to attribute that to ill-will in every case. 
We all live in motion and turmoil, and are the recip- 
ients of much which, without recalling the giver, we 
consider our own. Whoever has gathered around 
himself many pupils through many years, must ex- 
pect that his own thoughts may return to him from 
afar.”—Preface to Ges. Ahh., etc. (Berk, 1879). 
The first university establishing a full chair of path- 
ological anatomy in Germany—Vienna not counted 
—was Wurzburg. There and in Berlin he taught 
hundreds and thousands, and educated the men 
who were to occupy the chairs of pathological anat- 
omy in the other universities. Rudolph Mayer, Rind- 
fleisch, Recklinghausen, Bezold, Cohnheim, Grohe, 
Klebs, Ponfick, and many others owe him their 
opportunities and their places. Since, and through 
him, the appearance and working of German univer- 
sities have greatly changed. Through this whole 
long period he has worked steadily, and always more 
efficiently than noisily. His not rushing into print 
with every little observation has now and then raised 
the doubts of some of his former pupils, who 18 
would be gladly considered bis peers, whether he 
worked at all. This doubt has even been expressed 
publicly, and, in regard to some points, he has been 
attacked because of his alleged want of progressive- 
ness and thoroughness. Such is the case, for in- 
stance, in regard to the modern parasite theories of 
infectious diseases, and to Darwinism. Let us in- 
quire. 
Berzelius and Liebig developed the theory of 
chemical catalysis to such an extent that not only 
wras organic chemistry enriched by it to a considera- 
ble degree, but the symptoms of infection (not, how- 
ever, those of contagion) found a satisfactory expla- 
nation. Still, at that time, in 1854, Virchow’s essay, 
in the first volume of his Pathology and Therapeu- 
tics, on parasitic plants, gives sufficient proof of his 
interest in and knowledge of the subject. A special 
paper of his, in the ninth volume of his Archiv, in 
1856, demonstrated the botanical nature and classi- 
fication of some forms of parasites to which an im- 
portant part in nosology was to be attributed. At 
that time it was when lie invented and first used the 
term of Mykosis, which has been generally accepted 
since. 
Davaine in 1854, and Pollender, in 1855, found in 
anthrax the parasite which has since been given the 
name of Bacterium anthracis Cohn. Brauell’s pa- 
pers on the same subject appeared in the eleventh 
and fourteenth volumes of the Archiv, and were the 
forerunners of an immense literature which has since, 
in the Archiv, other journals, and independent pub- 
lications, assumed vast proportions. In Virchow’s 
hospital division it w7as, where Obermeier, in 1873, 
found the spirochaste in the blood of relapsing fever. 
Again, it was Virchow who, when travelling in Nor- 
way at the request of the Swedish Government, for 
the purpose of studying lepra, insisted upon the ne- 
cessity of paying more attention to the dietetic basis 
of the disease, particularly to the fish eaten in large 
quantities. He has been severely reproached for 
not finding the bacillus leprae, wThich, after the pre- 
paratory labors of four years, has been finally dis- 
covered by Armauer Hansen, twenty years after- ward.* That very reproach proves that everybody 
expects everything of him, and sometimes too much. 
Now, the discovery of every sort of possible and im- 
possible parasites is the regular order of the day, 
and has been for many years. On this side of the 
great water it has been Salisbury who has sharpened 
the appetite for numerous and uninterrupted dis- 
coveries of the kind. Every disease, every micro- 
scopic lens, every craving for notoriety, swelled 
the supply ; endless was the number of new names, 
never was Greek dictionary more diligently con- 
sulted. Among the last diseases, in which Klebs 
and Crudeli claim to have found vegetable para- 
sites which at once are taken to be the very 
causes of the same diseases, are intermittent fever 
and rheumatism. Here again, Virchow has been re- 
proached for not publicly accepting the bacilli of 
malaria and rheumatism. The very men who insist 
upon Virchow’s incompetency in regard to what 
they consider as the only basis of the nosology of 
infectious and epidemic or endemic disease, still 
appear to address every paper they write, every 
little observation they publish, to him. He is ex- 
pected to repeat the experiments at once, appreci- 
ate and praise the results, and come to the same 
conclusions. If he does not, he is incompetent. 
One of his best known, but not best deserving, former 
pupils and assistants, is Klebs, but lately an essayist 
before one of the London Congress sections. He ap- 
pears to have proved to his entire satisfaction that 
his poor master ought to be his attentive pupil. 
Among other novelties he has found that cellular 
pathology is incompatible with the new gospel of 
the parasite theory in regard to infectious diseases. 
Let us hear what Virchow himself has to say about 
this accusation (Archiv, vol. Ixxix., p. 209, 1880) : 
“Klebs has placed the whole dispute on a wrong 
basis. Vegetable and animal parasites are among the 
causes of diseases. Their place is in etiology, and 
therefore it is easily conceived that, as Klebs ex- 
presses himself, they found no place in my cellular 
* Archiv, vol. Ixxix., 1. c. 20 
pathology. There it was not any more my domain 
to offer an extensive paper on parasites, than it was to 
treat of traumatic injuries and corrosions. In my 
cellular pathology I meant to demonstrate the 
changes which take place in the elements of the or- 
ganism in the general forms of disease. Thus, 
I meant to build up a theory of the essentiality of 
disease. Specified causes were mentioned only as 
examples—for instance, intoxication; and though 
but briefly alluded to, parasites have not been en- 
tirely overlooked. Cellular pathology never meant 
to be a general pathology. If that were the case, 
certainly etiology would have found its place in it 
without abridgment.” 
Virchow has often been blamed for reserving his 
opinion, or rather not expressing it at once in favor 
of those who fain would have availed themselves of 
his approval of their rapid strides in discovery and 
unprecedented quickness of conclusion. We are all 
probably in favor of Judging slowly in regard to 
assertions which require confirmation. For to what 
extent hastiness, coupled with gentle ignorance, can 
prove dangerous, Professor Klebs has shown but 
lately. In a recent number of a European Journal, 
I find, under his name, the description of a cooking- 
apparatus, which is credited with keeping bacteria 
out of the milk which is to be boiled in it. Klebs 
is quite enthusiastic over it, because, as he asserts, 
now that bacteria can be kept out of cow’s milk, no 
summer diarrhoea has a chance to develop itself. 
For summer diarrhoea is all at once, according to 
him, the result of millions of bacteria in the intes- 
tines of the babies, the said bacteria being the same 
which are found in the decomposing cow’s milk. 
And how does he prove this sweeping assertion? 
Very simply indeed. While the babies had diarrhoea, 
he found the bacteria in the faeces, and thus he 
demonstrates that the diarrhoea is the result, and the 
only one, of the presence of bacteria. If, however, 
the Professor had examined the faeces of healthy 
babies, he might have counted the same number of 
millions of bacteria. The wise omission of such an 
examination saves his theory. Thus, if it be true 21 
that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, I am 
afraid that a little ignorance is just as dangeions. 
The parasite theory is not yet a scientific system. 
In most of its claims it is not yet sustained. Many 
alleged discoveries of characteristic disease-germs 
have seen the light in a few years, and disappeared 
in ntter darkness. In regard to the whole question, 
while anxiously and willingly waiting for further 
facts which would simplify the pathology of infec- 
tious and contagious diseases, I still maintain, as in 
the preface to my “ Treatise on Diphtheria ” (1880), 
the verdict “Not proven.” 
Another point which has been raised against Vir- 
chow is his hesitancy in accepting not only what 
has been called Darwinism, but at the same time the 
teachings and postulations of Darwin’s followers and 
apostles. 
As early as 1849—in his “ Movement in Favor of 
Unity in Scientific Medicine,” Virchow claimed the 
origin of life to be a mechanical necessity. In an 
oration delivered in 1858, a year before the publi- 
cation of Darwin’s “Origin of Species”—printed 
in a pamphlet containing “ Four Orations on Life 
and Disease ” (Berlin, 1862) —he pointed to the 
changeability and transmutability of species as a 
necessary basis for the mechanical theory of life. 
Thus, he was by no means unprepared for Darwin’s 
theories. But he knew—and nobody knows it bet- 
ter than Darwin himself—that the transmutability 
of species, the battle for existence, the theory of 
selection, even the doctrine of inheritance, were 
by no means Minerva’s springing from the head 
of Jupiter, unprepared and unexpected. For Goethe 
and Lamarck were not unknown, and the term 
of self-preservation was a stock in trade of the 
biology of bygone times. And nobody knows bet- 
ter than Darwin and Virchow, that hypotheses are 
not facts, problems not articles of creed, and the 
exaggerated generalizations of enthusiastic pupils 
not the outgrowths of superior minds. On the other 
hand, much of what was twenty years ago the fear 
and anxiety of many men and women, has greatly 
settled down as established facts. Twenty years ago 22 
the pulpits teemed with attacks on Darwin and 
what was called his monkey-theories, mobs gathered 
to stone public lecturers, and extra hells were 
heated to consume him and his followers. For did 
he not intend to annihilate the belief in everything 
that was sacred, even Judaism and Christianity 
themselves? Was not religion based on the cer- 
tainty that the world was created five thousand and 
seven hundred years ago—some thousand years 
after they enjoyed established civilizations in China, 
the East Indies, and Egypt—and was it not known 
that the monkey was constructed on Friday, and man 
on Saturday? 
Many, most of you, remember the time quite well 
—it has not passed away entirely—when strong ex- 
pressions were used concerning and against, the 
theories of Darwin and his pupils and collabora- 
tors. Many, however, are aware also that some of 
these pupils and collaborators fell into the same 
errors of expression and behavior we have to com- 
plain of in their opponents. Whoever was not with 
them totally, and in all their conclusions, was con- 
sidered to be against them. And in this respect no 
illustrious man had to suffer more from the exaggera- 
tions of zealotism on the part of really scientific 
men, than Virchow. 
A number of public meetings of several of the 
annual congresses of German physicians and natu- 
ralists, mainly those of Munich and Cassel, were 
taken up with a dispute principally between Virchow 
on one side, and Haeckel and Klebs on the other. 
It is mainly Haeckel to whom the popularization in 
Germany of Darwin’s ideas and theories are due. 
Himself distinguished by original researches, and 
an enthusiastic scientist, imbued with the instinc- 
tive belief that science must fertilize individual and 
public life, his sustaining Darwin and his theories 
have greatly contributed to making what has been 
called Darwinism the intellectual property of most 
educated Germans. But in one of his public speeches 
he insisted upon the theories on selection being ad- 
mitted among the subjects to be taught in the public 
schools of the most elementary character. It was to 23 
this that Virchow objected, on the ground that only 
established facts and results, and not theories, should 
be taught in schools. To this objection it was due 
that he was overwhelmed with reproaches. It was 
said that the man was so taken up with work of all 
kinds, that embryology and Darwinism were sealed 
books to him, and that he to whom—it was true— 
science owed so much, was to be pitied for his ad- 
vancing age, which prevented his keeping up with 
his former pupils, who now stood on his shoulders 
enjoying a larger mental horizon. These attacks on 
the part of Haeckel, and mainly of Klebs, are not 
pleasant reading. There is more eagerness and bit- 
terness in them than we desire to meet with in scien- 
tific productions and strifes, or have ever met with 
in any words penned by Virchow. 
There is a peculiar undercurrent to this contro- 
versy which is but rarely visible on the surface, but 
at the same time is readily recognized by a careful 
observer. To understand it, it must be remembered 
that German higher education is mainly classic, and 
irrespective of religious or anti-religious views ox- 
tendencies. The latter certainly are in the majority. 
Statistics do not prove that in any country and 
among any people, virtue, vice, and crime depend 
upon the presence or absence of f>ositive creeds, be 
they Judaism, Ghristianism. or any other form of 
belief; but among other influences on the amount 
and nature of education and training. Even the 
anti-semitic persecutions in modern Germany have 
their cause, not in the prevailing influence of the 
Christian religion, but in the absence of schools; 
for it is a statistical fact that those Pomeranian and 
Mecklenburg districts, in which Jews are killed and 
Jewish windows broken and stores robbed, are less 
supplied with schools, and can less boast of mastering 
the mysteries of reading and writing, than any other 
part of the land of Bismax-ck. 
Thus, it will be admitted that the mainly classic 
education and agnostic tendencies of the higher 
classes of Germans do not debar them from being 
good students, good men, and honest friends and 
enemies. But, after all, Hellenism and Latinism 24 
were human too, and Greeks and Romans hated 
and loved, scolded and praised, kicked and kissed, 
like people before and after them. There were 
zealots among them, too. Socrates was killed be- 
cause he believed differently from other people, 
on the plea, however, that he subverted the State, 
as two thousand years afterward, the Church burned 
a hundred thousand adversaries. Something re- 
minding of that has occurred in the land of free 
thought and profound philosophy lately. Haeckel, 
the classic scholar, the thorough philosopher, the 
original worker, is aggrieved at Virchow’s not 
seconding all his propositions, favoring all his 
plans, agreeing with all his opinions and methods. 
There is one peculiar trait in Haeckel, too, which is 
rather uncommon in a German savant. His studies 
have been mainly in embryology and biology. His 
religious views are of a negative character. He be- 
lieves that these ought to be strongly stated, con- 
trary to those who think and write, that creed, faiths, 
and religion have nothing to do with scientific re- 
searches. With these he differs. When his book on 
Evolution carries him to the conclusion that there is 
no need of a personal God—just as Laplace said he 
did not require that hypothesis—he not only ex- 
presses that conclusion in strong words, but de- 
votes a whole chapter to it. But others are of the 
opinion that the finding of truths and expounding 
them has nothing to do with the fighting of opin- 
ions and articles of faith, and that religious contro- 
versies must not form a part of scientific books. 
This opinion Virchow has shared all his life. More 
than thirty years ago (Gres. Abh., p. 6) he wrote as 
follows ; 
“Faith does not admit of a scientific discussion, 
for science and faith exclude each other. Not to 
such an extent, however, that one of them renders 
the other an impossibility, but in such a way that 
within the range of science there is no place for 
faith, and the latter can commence only where the 
former ends. It need not be denied that, if this bound- 
ary line be respected, faith may have actual objects. 
It is not, therefore, the domain of science to attack 25 
faith or its objects, but its duty is to mark and con- 
solidate the present termination of knowledge.” 
Such is his position this very day in regard to this 
question, and thus it is that much of the bitterness 
of feeling which appears to be engendered by strong 
anti-religious feelings almost as much a*s it is known 
to have generated ferocious persecutions and atro- 
cious wars of religion, has been spent on him. He 
has borne it placidly, but we have to be sorry for the 
fact that he could not be spared it. If there is any- 
thing in science, that something is its influence in 
elevating, refining, humanizing, and the scientist 
ought to be, and will be, the very apostle of human- 
ism. As science clears the brain, so it ought to 
purify the heart. Knowledge, logic, reason, ought 
to go hand-in-hand with feeling, sympathy, and fel- 
lowship. Let me dismiss, then, the controversy, 
commenced in an evil hour by a man otherwise great 
and good, by again quoting Virchow, who has re- 
mained true to what he expressed more than thirty 
years ago in the following words (Qes. Abh., p. 7) : 
“ Humanism, in its true meaning, is no apotheosis 
of mankind—for that would be anthropomorphism— 
but the scientific knowledge of the manifold and 
various relations of the thoughtful individual man 
to the ever-changing world. Its base is the science 
of nature, its very expression anthropology. For 
that reason humanism is neither atheistic, nor pan- 
theistic, for, in regard to everything beyond the 
reach of actual knowledge, there is but one formula : 
Ido not know (as Liebig said, the science of nature 
is modest). Humanism is neither spiritualistic nor 
materialistic, for to it constancy of force and con- 
stancy of matter are facts of equal significance, and 
the unity of man’s nature is a settled conviction. 
It is neither grossly egotistic nor sentimentally 
self-sacrificing, for, while recognizing the claim of 
everybody else upon existence and full development, 
he must demand equal rights for himself.” 
The humanism so well described by him, Vir- 
chow has lived up to. In his early political efforts, 
which necessitated his removal from Berlin to Wurz- 
burg, he showed his sympathy with the oppressed 26 
mass of the people; in his famous papers on the 
famine-typhus in Silesia and in the Spessart he 
showed his appreciation of the necessity of radical 
changes in the position of the neglected and starv- 
ing members of society. Thus, you observe that, 
while engaged in professional researches, which, in 
regard to universality, novelty, and reforming power, 
are surpassed by those of none whose name is 
immortalized in the history of medicine, Virchow 
never ceased to feel that he did not only belong to 
abstract science, but to his people; and again, as 
his science has always a practical aim and result, so 
his political and social views have a practical bear- 
ing. He was born one of the people, and a friend 
of the people. He need not turn politician ; he was 
a politician born. We, in this our country, are often 
in danger of forgetting that at one time, at least, the 
most intelligent, wise, and pure men of this nation 
of ours were our foremost politicians. Men of 
courage, character, and genius guided the rising 
star of the republic through the night of despair, 
and the ship of state through the storms of strife 
and battle. Without the controlling sympathy 
of the very best, the Constitution of the United 
States would not have seen the light, and could not 
have been sustained to its approaching centennial 
anniversary. We have since descended, sometimes, 
to the fear that only a second-class intelligence and 
a third-rate morality make a successful and eager 
politician, losing sight of the fact that Aristotle 
already defined man as a “ political being,” and in- 
sisted upon the labor of all in the interest of all. 
In many communities a politician is considered a 
man whose character is not above suspicion, morals 
doubtful, and social integrity shaky. If, however, 
there be any truth in this, the fault is neither in politics, 
nor in the politician or office-holder, but in us who 
feel so indifferent about our own and public matters 
as to close our eyes when watching is required, and 
to bemoan the result of an election instead of once 
appearing at the polls. When we happen to find a 
man of genius and integrity in a high or low public 
office, we are more apt to wonder how he came 27 
there, than to feel the necessity that onr offices 
should be filled by just snch men only. Virchow’s 
example should teach, particularly young medical 
men, that thorough science and good citizenship do 
not exclude each other. Indeed, there is nobody so 
removed from the midst of his fellows, so absorbed 
by abstract studies, but has interests in common 
with the rest of mankind; and nobody so raised 
above the level of his kind but can and ought to 
contribute to the elevation of his nation or race by 
personal contact and the attendance to daily duties. 
These twenty-two years Virchow has been a mem- 
ber of the administration of the city of Berlin. In 
his place as an “alderman” he has given his atten- 
tion to the minutiae of city government. A number 
of his papers, written within this period, treat of 
subjects of hygiene, drainage, canalization; and 
while they point to local necessities and improve- 
ments, they give the scientific reader copious mate- 
rial of general importance and new ideas. His 
regular re-election to the same place, his elevation 
to the vice-presidency of the board, prove two 
things: first, that his efforts in the direction of 
turning science into practice are appreciated by the 
population of his city; and secondly, that he is not 
tiring of keeping up his contact with his fellow- 
citizens, of feeling his obligation to the common- 
wealth, and acknowledging his duties to his neigh- 
bors ; and that much, as the Scriptures have it, is 
demanded of the man to whom much is given. 
But more. A man of his attainments can be 
made useful in a wider sphere; a man of his sense 
of responsibility will shoulder more important 
duties. Since 1862 he served in a constant succes- 
sion of terms as a representative of the people of 
Berlin, in the Prussian Lower House. In this capa- 
city he acted as a member of finance and other com- 
mittees, always ready to work, to learn, and to 
teach. 
However, to go into his history as a politician 
would require a review of Prussian and German poli- 
tics. This may be said only, that, though he be not 
at all a brilliant speaker, his words are always list- ened to with attention, his wisdom is always hon- 
ored, his courage and moderation are always admired. 
It is not necessary to add that he sides with the 
party of liberal views and progressive tendencies, 
and is in constant opposition to the one man who, 
through nearly twenty years of oppressive measures, 
dissolution of parliaments, governing without the 
assent of the representatives of the people, sudden 
changes both of economical and ecclesiastical policy 
and party affiliations, brutal assaults on the rights of 
individuals, the freedom of the press, and the princi- 
ples of the constitution, though he succeeded in 
throwing into the lap of the Prussian reigning family 
an addition of large territories, and gaining for Ger- 
many a partial unity, has done more than any German 
man in history to emasculate German politics and 
demoralize the public conscience. lam no prophet, 
but this I predict: when that man of iron and 
blood will laave closed his career, n© sorrowing 
fifty millions will drape their doors, as we did a 
week ago, and feel that every household has been 
bereaved, as we then felt. A seat in high politics 
will be vacant, but no place in the hearts of the 
people will need to be filled. Bismarck has not found 
a more persistent and conscientious adversary than 
Virchow through all his parliamentary career. __ In 
regard to the latter I will predict that among the Ger- 
man politicians who resisted, to the utmost, the law- 
lessness of absolutism, and claimed that law should be 
supreme, the rights of citizens respected, the office- 
holders know and live up to their duties, the consti- 
tution be carefully guarded and protected, and peace 
not rendered so expensive and exhausting as war, 
Virchow’s name will, lor all time, be mentioned 
among the first and wisest and purest. 
Did time permit, I would fain go into particulars: 
his contributions to the legislature on infectious 
animal diseases; on fisheries; his participation in 
the debates and legislation on the arbitrary expul- 
sion of Jesuits; of his introduction of the term 
“ Kulturkampf ” battle for culture —in connec- 
tion with the dissensions between Bismarck and the 
Pope, which commenced with the boast of the former 29 
that he would not go to Canossa, and ended with 
the victory of the latter four weeks ago; his many 
lectures for workingmen’s societies; his superin- 
tending, with Prof. Holtzendorff, the fortnightly 
publication of a number of series of popular lec- 
tures ; his supervising the erection of public hospi- 
tals and the first barracks; his conducting the first 
sanitary train into Prance during the Franco-Ger- 
man war, and his serving as an officer in the army 
auxiliary societies centred in Berlin.* 
When he first became noted in politics the ad- 
mirers of his genius became anxious concerning the 
influence politics might exert on the rest of his labors. 
There were those who predicted that politics meant 
the closing of his scientific career, and others—not 
rarely those who owed him their education, first 
ideas, and positions—jealous of the great king’s pow- 
ers, who supplied the cartmen with jobs while he was 
building—as Schiller has it—took it for granted that 
he could not even keep up with the rapid strides 
special branches of science were making through 
their and others’ efforts. But the facts point the 
other way. Since he almost filled the first volume 
of his Archiv with his introductory “ On the Stand- 
points in Scientific Medicine,” and his researches 
“On the Development of Cancer,’’'and “ On Patho- 
logical Pigments,” and an “Essay on the Keform of 
Pathology and Therapeutics by Microscopical In- 
vestigations,” almost no volume has appeared to 
which he has not himself contributed. Many of his 
papers are elaborate and lengthy, and would, if 
written by most others, according to the habit prevail- 
ing in Germany, have swelled the number of pamph- 
lets and books published with independent title- 
pages, instead of forming parts of journals. Gigantic 
work like that performed by him in his first twenty 
years cannot continue forever ; one new era created 
cannot be replaced by another by one man. If he 
had done nothing since besides writing his occa- 
* One of the latest cable news speaks of Virchow as one of th 
speakers in a public meeting held in memory of James A. Garfield. 
2* 30 
sional reviews and summaries, such as, “ Old and 
New Vitalism” (vol. ix.); “ Our (vol. 
1.); “War and Science ” (vol. li.); “On the Stand- 
points in Scientific Medicine ” (vol. Ixx., 1877, thirty 
years after his first article in the Archiv) ; “ The 
Nature and Causes of Disease ” (vol. Ixxix.), he would 
have deserved the thanks of the medical world. 
That he has done more, we know. Some remarks of 
his own in regard to the subject are found in the 
preface to his first volume on tumors, and are very 
characteristic. He says : 
“ The dates of many of my lectures will prove that 
even on those days on which important matters 
claimed the attention of Parliament, I have attended 
to my duties as a teacher. To set at rest the anxie- 
ty of my friends, I will add that the silent and 
often unnoticed labor of a scientist requires more 
energy and greater effort than the activity of the 
politician, which is both noisier and more speedily 
appreciated. The latter has appeared to me often to 
be rather a recreation than otherwise.” 
Of such “recreations,” as Virchow calls them, he 
has, however, more than one. His practice among the 
forlorn herdsmen of Asia Minor is an instance. 
Schliemann, by whose modern witchcraft holy old 
Troy is just leaving its tomb, invited Virchow to aid 
him in his work of discovery of the buried city. He 
went—partly to aid, partly, as he says, to escape from 
overwhelming labors at home, only to be engrossed 
in just as hard work, though of a different' nature. 
In regard to the latter, Schliemann’s recent book on 
Ilios contains some very interesting material. But 
what has engaged 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 exer- 
tions in behalf of the miserable population of His- 
sarlik, how he taught the aborigines the efficacy of 
chamomile and juniper, which grow about them, un- 
noticed and unused, in rare abundance ; how a spring 
he laid open for archaeological purposes has been 
called by them the physician’s well, and is believed to 31 
have beneficial effects ; how he was, on leaving the 
neighborhood, loaded with flowers, the only thing 
they had and knew wonld please him, has charmed 
me intensely. To admire a great man for his pro- 
fessional 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. 
On this platform, and on the seats in front of 
me, there are masters of our profession, not a few 
known wherever medical science and art are appre- 
ciated, studied, and practised. There is, however, 
none among them but has learned from the great 
genius whose name I have so often mentioned in 
the course of this hour. There are practitioners 
here, learned, shrewd, successful; every one of them 
uses the terms invented, knows the theories pro- 
posed by the same powerful mind. Those who are 
young have grown up under the shadow of this tree ; 
those who are old have been taught by him to look 
through his eyes and follow his methods. Schools 
have been overturned by his efforts, science and 
scientific method reign supreme. The last dangerous 
doctrine of the erases of the blood, so long upheld by 
Eokitanski, belongs to the past. Pathology is, since 
and through Yirchow, founded on the smallest organ- 
ism—the cell—and is, as Huxley but recently pro- 
claimed it, nothing but that branch of biology which 
treats of peculiar disorders of cellular life, or of the 
co-ordination'of cell-complexes, that give rise to every 
vital process. We cannot to-day read a medical 
book or monograph without Virchow’s name being 
inscribed on many pages. When it is not mentioned, 
it is because the facts have become as self-under- 
stood, almost, as a mathematical axiom or an occur- 
rence in hist017. There are hundreds of journal 
articles in our literature commencing with the 
phrase, “ Yirchow says.” Modern medicine without 
his name cannot be written. They belong together. 
Nevertheless, I repeat, his is not a school. His 
methods are simply scientific, based on facts and leading to facts. Schools are built on ingenious 
ideas, which are not based on facts and experiments. 
It is not probable, I cannot imagine, that after the 
schools of Bronssais and Brown and Schonlein, and 
that of Vienna, there will be another one. Our school, 
the school of the future, is scientific medicine. The 
greatest glory of Virchow, for all time, is that he 
was too great to establish one, and too universal to 
ask us to jurare in verba magistri. All of us, old, 
or young, knowingly and unknowingly, are his 
pupils. The young men who to-night enter upon 
the study of medicine will hardly be taught a chap- 
ter in pathology which does not exhibit the impress 
of his genius. 
Was I right in presenting, as an ideal pathologist, 
this man to the old and young engaged in medicine, 
and particularly those here this evening ? Virchow 
has done enough to immortalize his name by his 
researches and the progress medicine has made 
through him. His rank in the history of medicine 
is assured. Among archaeologists, also, he ranks 
high. The Anthropological German Society made 
him president after the first year of its existence. 
Schliemann calls him to Troy to avail himself of his 
superior knowledge. Numerous discoveries among 
old tombs, and valuable essays, are due to him. His 
scientific mind and exact methods prove as success- 
ful in archaeology as in pathology. Even purely his- 
torical researches, like those undertaken of late on 
the battle-field of Fehrbellin, owe him their success. 
His position in politics, his participation in all 
humane endeavors, I have alluded to. No longer is 
he to us only the man of pure science, but also the 
practical statesman and philanthropist. Moreover, 
he is the practitioner of medicine among the poor, 
like the best and noblest of us, as also, for the rank 
and file of the practitioners of medicine, he is the 
model of a professional brother and colleague. He 
is one of the most assiduous and regular mem- 
bers of the local medical societies, participating in 
scientific discussions, and serving the common in- 
terests of the profession. The same spirit of human- 33 
ism and solidarity which presses him into the service 
of the city and country, makes him an active associate 
of the medical community. Too often do we meet 
the contrary. Those who have risen and advanced, 
partly through their own efforts, partly, however— 
and not very rarely—through the favor of their 
fellows, are too apt to forget that they are but 
branches of the same tree. In our own midst we 
notice too frequently, that those whose co-operation 
and example would make them the most desirable 
members, keep away from the societies of the county, 
State, and others. The individualism and egotism 
of the industrial period of the nineteenth century, 
so rife among the manufacturing and commercial 
classes, threatens to invade the medical profession 
to an undue extent. There is no man, however, who 
sacrifices more time, and does more work to foster 
professional feeling and brotherhood, than Virchow. 
Hardly any of the great scientific national and inter- 
national associations and congresses takes place 
without Virchow being present. No question arises 
where universal knowledge and the weight of a 
great name are required, but his voice is heard. 
But lately, in London, he raised it in favor of pro- 
tecting and saving the physiological experiment. 
Both his universality and urbanity, as also his 
sense of justice, are of peculiar interest to us, the 
American profession. Many are the occasions on 
which he expressed his appreciation of the republican 
autonomy of the medical men in this country, of 
the efforts on the part of medical societies in behalf 
of the suppression of quackery, and also of the 
scientific results of American medical labor. Let 
me quote but one passage from an oration delivered 
on August 2d, 1874, “On the Progress of Military 
Medicine.” Virchow says (page 6) : 
“ The French army lost, in the Crimean war, thirty- 
three per cent, of its men, viz., 95,615. Of this 
number, 10,240 were killed on the battle-fields, and 
about as many died of their wounds in the hospitals. 
More than 75,000 men died of infectious diseases. 
In the American civil war 97,000 died of their wounds, and 184,000 perished of infections and other diseases. 
What a vast amount of pain and misery ! What an 
ocean of blood and tears! And besides, what a num- 
ber of errors, mistakes, and prejudices ! It is not ne- 
cessary to now enumerate the long list of blunders 
and sins. They are so well known as to serve in the 
future as warning examples. 
“ Let me say here that it was not misfortune alone 
that showed where the cause of the evil was, and 
then provided aid. If the French learned little or 
nothing in the Crimea, and the Americans so much 
in their civil war as to create a new era in military 
medicine, the explanation is not to be sought for in 
the immensity of misfortune and misery undergone 
by the Americans, for they did not suffer any more 
than the French did in the Crimea. The explana- 
tion is in the critical and thoroughly scientific spirit, 
the clear perception, the sound and practical com- 
mon sense which penetrated gradually every part of 
the American military administration, and which, 
with the astounding co-operation of an entire nation, 
accomplished more humane results than any great 
war ever produced before. Whoever studies the copi- 
ous publications of the medical staff of the American 
army, must again and again be astonished at the 
vast experience collected in them. Absolute accu- 
racy of details, the most painstaking statistics, ac- 
quaintance with all branches of medical learning, 
and a comprehensive style, are united in them for 
the purpose of collecting and preserving, in the in- 
terest of the present and future generations, the new 
knowledge so dearly bought.” 
So says Yirchow. 
Thus, we have in him a man who has done more 
for pathology then any single dead or living man. 
He has been foremost in raising, when the time was 
ripe for it, medicine to the dignity of a science, with 
purely scientific methods. He has served his coun- 
try as he did science, and humanity as he has his 
country. Was I right in speaking of him in the 
first hour of your medical studies, young men, as 
the ideal of a medical man, and a man? There is 35 
but one thing I have to add—it is this: that, as a 
rule, biographies are written, and held up to admira- 
tion and imitation when great men have long com- 
pleted their labors with their lives. Let us rejoice 
that Virchow’s biography is not completed yet, and 
that he will, I hope, long live to contribute to medical 
science, as your teacher and the teacher of your 
teachers.