RUDOLF VIRCHOW. 
(An Address delivered before the Medico Chirurgical Society of San Francisco.) 
BY 
LEVI C. LANE, A. M., M. D., (Berol.,) M. R. C. S. Eng. 
San Francisco, Cal. 
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA : 
Rtprinted from the Occidental Medical Times, August, 1893. Reprinted from the Occidental Medical Times, August, 1893. 
RUDOLF VIRCHOW 
An Address delivered before the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Sah Francisco. 
By Levi C. Lane, A. M., M. D., (Berol.,) M. R. C. S. Eng., Professor of 
Surgery, Cooper Medical College, San Francisco. 
Among the names of men who have lived in the nineteenth century, 
and who are destined to live in human memory, is that of Rudolf Vir- 
chow. 
Twenty-five years ago I heard an enthusiastic admirer of Virchow say 
that he would be willing to give five years of his coming life in exchange 
for one year under the instruction of Virchow. Forty years ago, when 
attending medical lectures in Philadelphia, I often heard this eminent 
authority referred to. Nearly twenty years ago I spent over two years 
in medical and surgical study in Europe, and six months of this time 
were passed at the University of Berlin, in the class-room of Virchow. 
That the opinion of him just expressed was not, and is not, an exag- 
gerated estimate of the man, I will endeavor to show by a review of 
what he has written, of what he has done, and of what he is doing. 
Most men who have earned distinction have done so by concentrating 
their energies in one direction; the striking characteristic of Virchow is 
that he has reached eminence along several lines, and so much so that 
had his labors been confined to any one of these he would still have 
made himself famous. Teacher, writer, pathologist, politician, • each 
and all has he been, and in later years he has also been an investigator 
in anthropology and in archeology. 
The medical studies of Virchow were pursued in Berlin, where the 
great advantage was his of coming in contact with Johannes Muller, 
from whom he imbibed that inspiring enthusiasm for medicine which 
has since incessantly animated the receptive student. The reverent love 
of Virchow for Muller, and the devotion to his memory is shown in the 
affectionate tribute paid by the pupil to his teacher, or rather to the 
wife, Sophie Muller, in an address, half apologetic, for certain opinions 
held by Virchow but not in harmony with opinions held by the Mullers. 
The hand of the renowned Schonlein, whose eye first caught a glimpse 
of the acarus scabiei, also contributed its share in the plastic molding of 
the young Virchow, repaid in after years by the pupil in some memorial 
pages imbued with affectionate respect. 
His successful career as student soon indicated Virchow’s fitness as 2 
teacher, and he would at once have been given a position in the Faculty 
of Frederick-Williain University, had he not at that time developed 
qualities which have ever since been predominant characteristics, viz., 
those of active political partizanship. In this role the part he has played 
has been a famous one, that of opponent to the policy of the Prussian 
Government; and this adverse position to the ruling power threw so 
many barriers in his way to advancement that he sought in Bavaria a 
more friendly field, and there was honored with the Professorship of 
Medicine in the famous school of Wurzburg, where he had once been a 
student. Here, too remote from Prussia to be much distracted by her 
politics, he gave heart and mind to his favorite study—pathology. In 
this Bavarian school, then the most frequented one in Germany, the 
young professor had fortunate association with Scherer, the physiolog- 
ical chemist, with Eisenmann, the German leader in internal medicine, 
and especially with Kolliker, who was greatly widening, if not actually 
creating, a new department in medicine, viz., the study of the minute 
or elementary tissues of the human body; in this work, which was 
chiefly microscopic, methods were pursued closely cognate to those in 
use for investigations in elementary pathology. 
At this period pathology was a field rich in truths awaiting the hand 
of discovery, although some work therein had been commenced, for 
observation had noted many facts; yet, these lay without order, in dis- 
jointed incoherence, ready for a master-hand to write them in logical 
sequence and to give them their true interpretation. The leading stu- 
dents and writers in England on this subject were James Paget and 
John Simon; forty years ago the writings of each of these were familiar 
to the medical reader. I recall with what impassioned ardor a little 
group of internes in a New York hospital read Simon’s little volume, 
and how great was our interest in his statement that the manifestations 
of disease are in obedience to laws as fixed and consequent as are those 
of health. Some pages of Paget’s most excellent English were trans- 
lated into the language of Celsus by the writer, who was then preparing 
for his naval surgical examination. 
Much pioneer-work had to be done before the pathologist could suc- 
cessfully labor, and this work was the task of anatomy. Anatomical 
science in a high degree of development was transmitted from antiquity 
to modern times through the works of Galen. Galen often suffers abuse 
in the address delivered at the modern medical commencement, an abuse 
which might be avoided were the speaker to read Galen’s wonderful 
chapters on anatomy. Whoever will take the pains to read these chap- 
ters will find in them an almost accurate epitome of the science as it 
exists in any one of our text-books on the subject, the chief difference 
being that the modern book lacks the spirit of religion which pervades 
the pages of Galen. It is time that this tirade against Galen should 3 
cease; it began with Paracelsus, who burned the works of Galen in the 
market-place of Basle, and in their stead left his own books, which are 
a strange medley of stray truths, commingled with religion, astrology, 
alchemy, and incomprehensible mystery. Instead of Galen’s rational 
anatomy, Paracelsus teaches that the body is composed of three ele- 
ments—mercury, salt, and sulphur. Besides this elementary trilogy 
into which Paracelsus sought, by alchemy, to resolve the animal body, 
if one gropes into his mystic magazine, he finds written there similia 
similibus curantur. 
After the luminary of medicine had long been dimmed by mystic 
occultation, approaching total eclipse, it emerged from these clouds and 
moved in a more rational orbit; the anatomy of Galen, where in error, 
was revised by Vesalius, Eustachius, Fallopius, and others, whose 
researches were honored by inscribing the names of their authors on 
some part of the human body. Each bone, muscle, nerve, and vessel 
having been carefully studied, anatomical research appeared complete, 
when Bichat announced that these structures were susceptible of division 
into tissues. In the midst of the terrors of the French revolution, in 
1801, Bichat gave the medical world his remarkable work on anatomy, 
in which one finds the first systematic classification of the tissues com- 
posing the body. To commemorate his services to medical science, the 
figure of Bichat is given a prominent place on the front of the Pantheon 
of Paris. 
In its work of analysis, research passed from the tissues to their com- 
ponents; the hand of Bichat opened the way and pointed towards a new 
world, a world of the “ infinitely little.” as Pascal names the microscopic 
field which lies beneath man, in contrast to the immensely great one 
which lies above and beyond him. The scientific side of medicine soon 
attracted a host of students; the macroscopists and the microscopists 
were emulous rivals. In anatomy Henle, of Gottingen, explored every 
inch of the field, and gave the world a work which defies competition; 
a book in which the usual description of parts is replaced by one that is 
wholly new; for instance, his description of the sphenoid and the tem- 
poral bones is so singularly original that it clings to memory with unusual 
tenacity; yet, as lecturer before a class, as I remember him, his slow 
elaboration of his subject approached tediousness. 
Near by, labored the histologists, represented in France by Robin, 
and in Germany by Kolliker and others, who unraveled the normal tis- 
sues and studied their elementary components in their primary state, 
and in their subsequent growth and changes. Cognate to this analytic 
study arose that of the science of pathology, in which were first studied 
those alterations in the coarse anatomical structures and their constitu- 
ent elements which are caused by disease. A great pioneer in the work 
of making necropsies, and of observing and recording the changes of 4 
structure due to morbid action, was John Baptist Morgagni, who wrote 
his observations in a famous book named “Adversaria Anatomica,” a 
copy of which I exhibit to you; the title literally signifies the daily jot- 
tings of anatomical observation The Lancet many years ago adopted 
as a motto for its section of hospital practice the admirable lines of Mor- 
gagni, in which he says, “There is no other certain way to know medi- 
cine except to have collected many histories of disease and of post 
mortem examinations of one’s own work as well as that of others, and 
to compare these together.’’ 
In this work of Morgagni, and of numerous co-laborers, the patholo- 
gist did not reach the nucleus of his subject; he onlv went as far as his 
unaided eye could guide him; to follow disease to its ultimate hiding- 
place he needed the microscope. 
The microscope, as indispensable adjuvant in histological and patho- 
logical study, came into use slowly. The older generation was content 
with inacroscopy; one generation ago the laboratory and the microscope 
came into general use. Helmholz, in his address entitled “Thinking 
in Medicine,’’ refers to the meagerness of such instruction in his student 
years as follows: “The instruments were dear and scarce; I became the 
possessor of one in thiswise: During the autumn vacation of 1841 I was 
ill in the Charity Hospital, Berlin ; being a student, medical treatment 
cost me nothing, and so, when I had recovered, I found myself pos- 
sessor of a small amount of money which I had thus saved. The instru- 
ment purchased was not a beautiful one, vet it permitted me to recognize 
the nervous processes of the ganglionic cells of invertebrate animals, as 
described in my inaugural thesis; also to see the vibriones mentioned in 
my work on Putrefaction and Fermentation.’’ 
After a few years’ connection with the school at Wurzburg, Virchow 
was called to Berlin and made Professor of Pathology in Frederick - 
William University. During his connection with the Bavarian School, 
he had made himself a conspicuous figure in the medical world by the 
publication of an elaborate work, entitled “Handbook of Special Pathol- 
ogy and Therapy.’’ Besides editing this work, Virchow was one of the 
most extensive contributors to it. This work commences with a volume 
written by Virchow on “The General Forms of Disturbance and Dis- 
ease (in the body) and their Ways of Compensation;” in this book the 
student will find one of the most exhaustive studies of the subject of In- 
flammation. With the cooperation of a number of the leading medical 
writers of Germany, this encyclopedic work was continued for several 
years; among its writers may be mentioned the names of Bamberger, 
Griesinger, Hasse, Lebert, Traube, and Hebra, each an authority on his 
subject. In his contributions one catches glimpses of the future Vir- 
chow, especially in the chapters on thrombus, obstruction of vessels, and 
embolism. This encyclopedic work seems to not have reached its com- 5 
pletion, although it contains seven large volumes. It has been suc- 
ceeded by Ziemssen’s great publication, of somewhat similar character. 
During the publication of the work referred to, Virchow commenced 
a journalistic publication, entitled Archives of Pathological Anatomy, 
Physiology and Clinical Medichie. In this journal have appeared papers 
of great merit on these subjects; in fact, the critical censorship of the 
eminent editor was such, that the appearance of an article in the Archives 
was guarantee of excellence. As one example may be cited the Essay 
of Ernest Briicke on the Causes of Coagulation of the Blood; a compend 
of work done in the years 1853, 1854, and 1855, in which he was com- 
petitor for the Astley Cooper prize which, from time to time, was 
awarded by the authorities of Guy’s Hospital for original experimental 
work. The prize was this time awarded to Richardson, although it is 
probable that Brucke was nearer than Richardson to the correct solu- 
tion. 
In 1851 Virchow became one of the associate publishers of Cans tatf s 
Jahresbericht, a review of the progress of medicine in all parts of the 
world. This work consists of two large volumes, published annually, 
and contains a compend of what is published in each and every different 
language, during the preceding vear, in every section of medicine. It 
began in 1841, under the supervision of Canstatt of Ansbach, who, for a 
time, as a reviewer, took charge of one of the sections. This publica- 
tion soon passed into the hands of Eisenmann, who, in 1851, chose as 
collaborators, Schrer and Virchow; to-day the work is under the control 
of Virchow and Hirsch. Canstatt began the work with a corps of some 
seventeen assistants, to each of whom was assigned for review one sec- 
tion ot medicine; to-day, the work comprises in all one hundred and 
four large octavo volumes, and has a corps of reviewers, amounting to 
nearly forty men of eminence in some department of medicine. I may 
add that, during the last thirty years, the reading of Canstatt's Jahres- 
bericht has occupied many of my leisure hours. As a store of knowl- 
edge, in which the annual advancement in medicine is arranged in easy 
referable order, this work stands without parallel or approximate rival; 
here anatomist, pathologist, surgeon, physician, and specialist, find all 
the progress made in his department during the last fifty-two years. In 
each issue the tireless hand of Virchow furnished, for many years, a 
review of his favorite subject, pathology. 
When, in 1856, Virchow was called to Berlin and given the appoint- 
ment of Professor of Pathological Anatomy in the University of Frederick- 
William, he was thirty-six years of age, in the prime of physical and 
mental vigor, and his connection with one of the first German universi- 
ties offered him opportunity for the exercise of his best powers as 
teacher, lecturer, and writer. To give him ample sphere for the teaching 
of his specialty, there was erected, under his supervision, it is said, a 6 
large building, near the Charite Hospital, specially arranged for patho- 
logical work. This edifice, named Pathologisches Institut, contains one 
room for postmortem examinations, three lecture-rooms, and a museum 
in which are stored pathological specimens. The Pathological Institute 
has been the scene and home of Virchow’s great work in medicine. 
In the winter semester of 1857 and 1858 this building was rendered 
famous by the delivery of twenty lectures, in which Virchow elaborated 
and presented his doctrine of cellular pathology. These lectures, of 
which there is a good English translation, introduced a new era in med- 
icine. In a style singularly attractive, they gave to pathology a definite 
and enduring form, depicting the changes which disease impresses on 
the tissues, the constituent cell being the prime factor in all the morbid 
processes. The connective tissue, hitherto viewed as an unimportant 
or inert contingent of animal structure, was, by Virchow, first shown to 
have most invaluable functions: as an agent of repair, furnishing ele- 
ments for the restoration to integrity ol diseased or injured parts; while, 
as a neoplastic factor the cell, whether of connective tissue or of epithe- 
lial origin, is the leading agent in the development of sarcoma, carci- 
noma, and other growths. Although subsequent research has rendered 
necessary a revision of some points of these doctrines, yet, in the main, 
they stand in integrity, despite the efforts of some who would fain sub- 
vert them. 
The publication in 1858 of Cellular Pathology, was followed in 1863 
by one of equal eminence, The Pathology of Tumors; the latter may be 
considered as the supplementary completion of the former. The Path- 
ology of Tumors was also delivered, within a period of five months, as a 
series of lectures to an audience of students and physicians; and only one 
with untiring diligence and supreme capabilities for work would, as 
Virchow was then situated, have undertaken such a task. He acknowl- 
edges that, without the aid of the stenographer who copied the lectures, 
the work would have been impossible; for, as he says in the preface, his 
duties in the Prussian House of Representatives, to which he had been 
elected, added to those in the University, left him no leisure for a new 
publication. The work was, however, accomplished, although not com- 
pleted as the author intended; yet, it will remain as a great, perhaps the 
greatest, master-piece in this department. It was the embodiment of the 
researches of twenty years, and of a personal study of tumors in their 
different forms. To tranquilize friends who were anxious in regard to 
his overwork, he assured them that his work in the House of Represen- 
tatives was often a relaxation, requiring less expenditure of force than 
that of the writer in his chamber of quiet labor. Tn the preface he em- 
phasizes the importance of accurate observation, and says that only such 
objective methods of study can truly answer the questions which arise 
in scientific inquiry. This work is of universal authority; and writers 7 
on the subject, whether English, French, Italian, Spanish, or German, 
never fail to quote from Virchow’s Pathology of Tumors. 
The labors of Virchow have not been confined to scientific work; he 
is a friend of popular instruction, and has liberally contributed his quota 
in that direction. A few years ago, in conjunction with Fr. von Holzen- 
dorff, he commenced the publication of a series of addresses in popular 
form on subjects within the domain of literature, history, medicine, and 
natural science; to-day the work has reached to nearly the number of 
seven hundred addresses, and those which have relation to medicine or 
to natural science have been supervised by Virchow. Although these 
addresses are popular in character, they have yet been prepared by their 
learned authors with such care that the educated reader will be repaid 
for the perusal of any of them. Here, as in other cases where Virchow 
has been an associate writer or publisher, he has outlived his fellow col- 
laborator; the position of Holzendorff is now filled by Wattenbach. I 
may remark that the course of public lectures, annually delivered at 
Cooper Medical College, is somewhat analogous to some of those in the 
series here referred to. Such lectures, besides giving the public glimp- 
ses of the progress which legitimate medicine is making, do still further 
good in placing within the hands of the people a few hygenic weapons 
with which to fight the battle of life. 
To what has been mentioned Virchow has added other literary work, 
consisting of memorial addresses, papers on public hygiene, and on top- 
ics kindred to Medicine. Here, especially in the addresses on Schon- 
lein, Muller, and Goethe as naturalist, he has given evidence that his 
pen is at home in a field far removed from the pathological. In speak- 
ing of Goethe’s recreations in natural science, Virchow says that the 
nobility of Goethe’s character was manifest in the fact that, when tired 
in the service of his muse, lie found content in excursions into Nature’s 
realm of the eternallv beautiful and the eternally true. Virchow’s Essay 
on Sickness and Health is delightfully written; that he has faithfully de- 
picted the differences of these conditions, will find affirmative response 
in the experience of most readers. In the dissertation in which he deals 
with the mechanical conception of life, the all-important part performed 
by the cell is told in a most interesting manner, and the subject made 
plain to the ordinary reader. 
Virchow was an active participant in the deliberations of the famous 
association founded by Oken, named the Society of German Naturalists 
and Physicians. Before this society he delivered, in 1865, an address, 
entitled “The Importance of the Natural Sciences; and their Develop- 
ment in Germany,” every line of which is illumined with the light of 
exalted patriotism. This address awakened much feeling; so much re- 
sentment did it arouse in the mind of a Russian delegate to the Society, 
that he arose and left the hall. It was also vehemently attacked by the 8 
press of Austria. These occurrences scarcely disturbed the composure 
of one who had a lance well disciplined in fiercer conflicts in the arena 
of Prussian politics. 
In 1890, when the International Medical Congress met at Berlin, by 
unanimous consent of the medical profession of Germany, without a 
challenging rival. Virchow was selected as the one most worthy of the cov- 
eted position of presiding over that body; anti the chaplet then placed 
on his brow was stirred by no breath of envy since it had the sanction 
of the medical men of all nations. The equal of Panuni, one of his 
predecessors, his ear was no stranger to the English, French, and Ger- 
man languages in which the deliberations of the Congress were con- 
ducted. Like all learned Germans, he speaks English well. 
Virchow’s varied talents have found occupation in the fields of arche- 
ology and anthropology. A few years ago he spent a vacation on the 
site of ancient Troy, in company with Schliemann, who was engaged 
in exploration of the ground rendered sacred by Homer’s muse. 
Virchow soon after published an interesting account of his observations 
there. In the field of anthropology he is a most diligent student. After 
the Franco-Prussian war he met M. Quatrefages, a co-laborer in the 
same science; but national disappointment and the memory of damage 
by Prussian bombardment to the National Museums of Natural History 
in the Jardin des Plantes, caused Virchow’s former friend to turn coldly 
from him. As Ulysses learned, when the shade of Ajax turned slight- 
ingly away, that the resentments of the dead are eternal, so Virchow 
learned that the wounds of national pride sting forever. 
The visitor to Pere la Chaise finds the tomb of La F'ontaine sur- 
mounted by a monument on which are the forms of the animals which 
play such a part in his fables. Were a monument to be erected which 
should typify the various phases of Virchow’s intellectual labor, it would 
be yet more diversified; and to add to that diversity, so striking in the 
portrait I have given of him, many pages might be written of his ca- 
reer as a politician. The limits of this article, however, will permit but 
brief reference to this remarkable chapter in his life’s history. 
By mental constitution Virchow is a controversialist; by precept and 
by practice he has taught that unless a man, when unjustly attacked, 
defends himself, he is lacking in duty. Besides the defensive, he has 
also taken a boldly aggressive part in scientific and in political assem- 
blies, when error or when usurpation threatened encroachment. A 
recent example of this was a tilt in which his opponent was Haeckel; 
the latter was advocating the introduction in the text-books for 
youths, of the doctrines of Haeckel in regard to the origin and 
evolution of organic life. Virchow did not think that the doctrine 
of animal life and its phenomena, which Haeckel refers to, the 
spontaneous aggregation of Herr Kohlenstofif (Carbon) and Com- 9 
pany, had been well enough proven to be ranged among common truths. 
In his political course, Virchow has ever been the champion of pop- 
ular rights. In the Prussian House of Representatives his voice has 
often been heard in fearless denunciation of ecclesiastical encroachment 
and of military absolutism. In 1875, when the church was seeking for 
alliance with the government, Virchow called the Emperor to account 
in words which scarcely any other tongue would have dared to utter. 
He has ever been an unflinching opponent to the military policy of Bis- 
marck; the latter once challenged Virchow to a duel, to which chal- 
lenge he received the answer, as popular rumor says, that Virchow 
would accept the challenge of Bismarck when the latter became the peer 
of the former in morality. In 1875 Bismarck complained of this oppo- 
sition in terms which reminded one of the peevish whining of the sick 
Caesar when he says: “Give me some drink, Titinius, like a sick girl.” 
One of the noblest efforts of Virchow’s intellectual life is an address, 
delivered only ten weeks ago, befor'e the Royal Society of England. 
The subject was “The Position of Pathology Among the Biological Sci- 
ences.” Although delivered from the rostrum where Faradav, Huxley, 
Tyndall, Buckle, and other representitives of the best intellect of Eng- 
land have stood, no abler address was ever there spoken. It was an 
offering at a noble shrine of the best fruits of one of the ablest and 
most thoroughly trained minds within the domain of medicine. In 
English as polished as his native Teutonic, and with a modesty which 
is ever the close companion of greatness, in simple, almost impersonal 
terms, he narrated his services to the science of medicine. This address 
is so full of learning, so eloquent, and so suggestive in many of its lines, 
that one who has but once read it, will not be therewith content, but 
must perforce read it again. To the medical scientist, as well as to the 
practitioner whose labor is gratuitous or ill-paid, the following quotation 
from it contains words of cheer: “True happiness is not based on the 
appreciation of others, but on the consciousness of one’s own honest 
labor. How otherwise should we hold our ground in the midst of the 
turmoil of the day?” Similar words of Forster, Carlyle, and Emer- 
son have cheered others in hours of unpaid-for and unthanked-for toil. 
Virchow has made the whole medical profession heirs of his doctrine, 
and his lines of work and methods of research have been pursued with 
especial zeal by some of his pupils—among these may be mentioned 
Recklinghausen, Wegner, Orth, and Grawitz. As tireless worker and 
thoughtful investigator, Grawitz most nearly resembles his master. 
A little less than twenty years ago I went abroad and spent over two 
years in study at some of the leading scientific and medical institutions 
of Europe; the purpose being to enjoy instruction at its prime sources 
from the lips of the masters. On review I should say that the time 
most profitably used, was five months spent in hearing a course of 10 
eighty four lectures by Huxley, on Biology, and a semester spent in 
Berlin, where the time was divided between Langenbeck and Virchow. 
I registered as a student and took all the courses by Virchow. These 
were on the following subjects: one course on necropsies, one of lec- 
tures on pathology, one of the study of pathological material furnished 
by all the hospitals of the city, and a fourth course consisting of the 
microscopic study of pathological specimens. To the microscopic work, 
six hours daily were devoted, five days of every week, and this amount 
of time enabled one to pass cursorily over the field and to acquire the 
rudiments, at least, of pathology. 
I first saw Virchow at his practical course in the necropsy-room; he 
entered in haste, almost breathless, and at once proceeded to his sub- 
ject. The cadaver, frozen and in a room ice-cold, was examined ac- 
cording to the plan laid down in Virchow’s manual entitled “Sections 
Technik.” In the use of his special knife which he called the “pathol- 
ogist’s sword,” he displayed wonderful expertness and faultless accuracy. 
Holding the brain in his hand, he cleaves it in parallel planes, so that it 
is divided into many thin lamellae, which, like a book, can be opened 
and closed at any point, and the whole can afterwards be replaced in 
the cranium with but little sign of mutilation. Thus proceeding, dis- 
ease at any point can be discovered. One saw Virchow at his best in 
his demonstrative course on pathology, given every Saturday. A long 
series of plates laden with morbid specimens was, one by one, brought 
along before him, and the special character of each explained. On one 
occasion the head of a horse that had died of glanders was the speci- 
men chiefly considered; this head sawn through longitudinally so as to 
present the nasal cavities studded with ulcers, lay for an hour before 
him, while he discussed the disease of glanders. When the fatal char- 
acter of the disease is considered, it is evident there was no small risk 
in thus standing over and breathing the effluvia from such a source of 
lethal contagion. On another occasion, numerous specimens from a case 
of variola lay before him while he gave an extended lecture on the dis- 
ease. This was true courage, the constant endowment of the earnest 
scientist. During these lectures, the microscopic exhibits, mounted on 
instruments, were moved along before the students on a miniature rail- 
way track, which was fastened on the desks. When the plate of glan- 
ders or of variolous specimens was in circulation, I need scarcely say 
they made a very brief halt at my station. 
This demonstrative course was commenced by directions to the stu- 
dents how to use their eyes; for this instruction a small block of wood 
was taken in the hand of the lecturer, who placed it in various positions 
so as to best bring in view its outlines, color, and differences of surface, 
while he demonstrated that the uninstructed eye sees but little of what 
it might observe. 11 
In his lectures on pathology, the precious specimens preserved in al- 
cohol in sealed jars were brought out and passed through the hands of 
the class. These specimens have furnished the imperishable facts that 
are to be found in his Cellular Pathology, and the Pathology of Tumors. 
No wonder that he watched the transit along the class of these jars with 
anxiety like a mother’s when watching her infant in danger, nor that a 
sharp word of reproof often followed awkward handling. 
How accurate was his knowledge of the pieces he was to consider in 
his demonstrative course, was shown on one occasion when, for the pur- 
pose of microscopic work, I had removed the merest fragment from a 
cerebellum; he instantly detected it, halted in his lecture, and adminis- 
tered a reproof to the unknown marauder. Carelessness and inatten- 
tion on the part of a student was at once observed and often chided. 
One whose eyes wandered through the window to something outside, 
was notified that if he saw anything there more interesting than the lec- 
ture, he had better retire. A luckless American with Bodeker’s Guide 
for Travelers, once wandered into his lecture-room, and soon giving 
book preference to lecturer, he received a sharp reproof. 
Time is too short for Virchow; for completion of the work he always 
has on hand, the day should number more than twenty-four hours. 
Not infrequently he spoke three times in one day. Once I heard him 
lecture in the forenoon, and in the evening listened to a long political 
speech by him; in the afternoon of the same day he was engaged in 
sharp debate in the Reichstag, and all this while carrying on the writ- 
ings before mentioned. 
Political life has evident fascination for him, for, while these lines are 
being penned, the telegram comes that he is a candidate for reelection 
to the House of Representatives. As a speaker Virchow is exceedingly 
calm and deliberate; and whether before a class of students or a polit- 
ical club, he is never carried away bv the “torrent, tempest, and whirl- 
pool of passion,” but his uttered sentences, scarcely distinguishable 
from his written ones, are clear, logical, forcible, and convincing. In 
person Virchow is of average stature; his expression is that of extraor- 
dinary courage; and his attention once drawn to you, you feel as if he 
were fixing you, in focus, on the object-glass of his mental microscope. 
A few years ago the French government, on the occasion of the death 
of Claude Bernard, deputed Gambetta to pronounce an Uoge on the 
great scientist; this oration, replete with supreme eloquence, closed with 
the remarkable words: “We now offer our salutations to Claude Ber- 
nard on his entrance into immortality.” The hand of Death had then 
closed the door against Envy. But a few months ago the world was 
witness of still greater salutations which greeted the ear of one yet liv- 
ing; men of all tongues, and of all climes where medicine is a cultivated 
science, sent gifts, offerings, and congratulations to Virchow on the an- 12 
niversary of his seventieth birthday. So profusely were these honors 
heaped upon him, that had Horace put to him his question, Natales 
%rate numeras? it could have received no negative answer. Among 
the offerings was a medallion of gold, the coinage of the gifts of many 
friendly hands. But as form chiseled from marble, and feature limned 
by the pencil, are perishable, these gifts of art were surpassed by an- 
other offering: this was a sheaf harvested from the best fields of German 
medicine, composed of fascicles written by hands trained by the great 
teacher; this offering, “the enduring produce of immortal mind,” was 
the most noble and imperishable of all, since it was wrought by the 
merciful hand of Medicine, and, besides homage to the master, it con- 
tained a solace to pain and disease, the perpetual heritage of our race.