Virchow, Rudolf

Virchow, Rudolf (1821-1902), German pathologist and statesman, and one of the most prominent physicians in the nineteenth century. 

Rudolf Virchow (1821- 1902) proceeded to replace tissues with cells as the dominant materialist monads of life and disease. According to his cell doctrine, all cells, and hence all life, came from cells No developed tissue can be traced back either to any large or small simple element, unless it be to a cell (quoted from Libby, 1922, p. 267). (The phrase, Omnis cellula e cellula , however, frequently attributed to Virchow, seems to have been first used as an epigraph by Francois Raspail (1794-1878) (Harris, 1999, P- 33)). 

Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902), considered by some to be the greatest pathologist of all time, delivered 20 lectures at the Pathological Institute of Berlin during the months of February, March and April, 1858. These lectures were later translated into English and published. The following is an extract from this translation which demonstrates that Virchow was aware of the possibility that inflammation could be involved in the development of atheroma more than 150 year ago. 

In 1852 Robert Remak explicitely rejected the free-formation idea and concluded that Cells always come from the division of other cells. In 1855 Rudolf Virchow reached the same conclusion by studying a great number of normal and pathological adult tissues, and condensed it with the motto omnis cellula e cellula . The final version of the cell theory is therefore the combination of Schleiden and Schwann s first theory with the conclusion of Remak and Virchow All living creatures are made of cells and of cell products, and cells are always generated by the division of other cells. ... 

Protein Mass Spectrometry and Functional Proteomics Group, Rudolf-Virchow-Center for Experimental Biomedicine, University of Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany. 

Rudolf Virchow, the cell doctrine as founder of cytology... 

Medical historians view Virchow (1821-1902) as the Newton (1642-1727) of scientific medicine. Emanuel Rubin and John L. Father, the authors of the textbook Pathology, state Rudolf Virchow, often referred to as the father of modern pathology. . . propos(ed) that the basis of all disease is injury to the smallest living unit of the body, namely, the cell. More than a century later,... 

Ackerknecht, E. H. Rudolf Virchow Doctor, Statesman, Anthropologist. Madison University of Wisconsin Press, 1953. 

Boyd, B. A. Rudolf Virchow The Scientist as Citizen. New York Garland Publishing, 1991. 

Rather, L. J., ed. Disease, Life, and Man Selected Essays by Rudolf Virchow. Stanford Stanford University Press, 1958. 

Department of Gastroenterology, Rudolf Virchow Hospital, Charite University Medicine, Berlin, 13353, Germany... 

Schmidt W, Weber OF. In memoriam of Rudolf Virchow a historical retrospective including aspects of inflammation, infection, and neoplasia. Contrib Microbiol. 2006 13 1-15. 

However, as a side-effect of the therapy, his patients suffered from a massive flush syndrome (harmless but mostly unpleasant reddening ofthe skin on the face, neck, chest and upper arm). For a better assessment, Hoffer himself took gram quantities of niacin over several months, and discovered to his surprise that this treatment had healed his serious inflammatory gum disease. Inspired by Rudolf Virchow s hypothesis, that atherosclerosis was an inflammatory process, which was associated with serum cholesterol, Rudolf Altschul (1901-1963), Hoffer s former histology teacher, demonstrated in his hypercholesterolemic rabbit model, that within a few days niacin brought cholesterol levels back to normal. This prompted corresponding studies by Hoffer in the psychiatric patients. 

German pathologist Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902) postulates that all cells arise from other cells. 

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