GERMANY

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume VII, Issue 1, 1 October 1902, Page 79

GERMANY

The recent death of Professor Vkchow, at the ripe old age of SI, closes a career of more than usual brilliancy, and one which has been of inestimable value to the cause of medical ' science and public health. Like many other great men.. Professor Virchow was of humble origin, his father being a small Pomeranian shopkeeper and farmer. Commencing his education at a village school, and completing it at Berlin, we find him in 1843 Assistant Professor at the Berlin Charity Hospital, nnd later at the Wurzburg University. From that time onward much of his wonderful energy was devoted to the discovery and investigation of the cellular system of pathology, which was found to work in perfect accord with the bacteriological theories of Pasteur and Koch on their subsequent discovery. By his untiring experiments and investigations Virchow worked a marvellous transformation in medical science and practice. It was not only through him that the Berlin Pathological Museum was built, but he also gave much of his time to its superintendence. Outside his medical studies he was an ardent politician, a democrat of democrats. (He held for twenty-five years the position of Chairman of the Committee of Finance in the Prussian Parliament. For thirteen years he was a member of the Reichstag, and for fortytwo in the Berlin Municipal Council.