Tuesday 11 December 2012

Rudolf Vichrow


Rudolph Carl Virchow (13 October 1821 – 5 September 1902) was a German doctoranthropologistpathologistprehistorianbiologist and politician, known for his advancement of public health. Referred to as "the father of modern pathology", he is considered one of the founders of social medicine.
In 1861, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1892, he was awarded the Copley Medal. Among his most famous students was anthropologist Franz Boas, who became a professor at Columbia University.
The Society for Medical Anthropology gives an annual award in Virchow's name, the Rudolf Virchow Award.



From a farming family, he studied medicine and chemistry in Berlin at the Prussian Military Academy from 1839 to 1843[1] on a scholarship. When he graduated in 1843, he went to serve as Johannes Peter Mueller's assistant at the Charité Hospital. At this time, the German medical tradition was inclined more towards ‘romantic speculation’ and ‘naked empiricism’, in contrast with the more scientific approach found in England and France.
At Charité, he learned microscopy alongside with Robert Froriep. Froriep was the editor of an abstract journal that specialised in foreign work, allowing Virchow to be exposed to the more forward-looking scientific ideas of France and England. In 1848, he qualified as a lecturer at the University of Berlin, and became Froriep's successor. Unlike his German peers, Virchow used to have great faith that clinical observation, animal experimentation (to determine causes of diseases and the effects of drugs) and pathological anatomy, particularly at the microscopic level, were the basic principles of investigation in medical sciences. He went further and stated the cell was the basic unit of the body that had to be studied to understand disease. Although the term ‘cell’ had been coined in the 1600s, the building blocks of life were still considered to be the 21 tissues of Bichat, a concept described by the French physician Marie Bichat. Because his writings were not receiving favourable attention by German editors, he associated with Benno Reinhardt in founding the Archiv für pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie und für klinische Medizin, world-famous as “Virchow's Archives”, which he edited alone from Reinhardt's death in 1852 until his own. This journal began publishing high-level contributions based on the criterion that no papers would be published which contained outdated, untested, dogmatic or speculative ideas.
In 1849, he was employed as chair of pathological anatomy at the University of Würzburg, leaving his post at Carité, where he was experiencing political persecution. During his six-year period there, he concentrated on his scientific work, including detailed studies on venous thrombosis and cellular theory. By 1856, Virchow was asked to return from Würzburg to the Charité Hospital in Berlin. Such a reinstatement was evidence of the name he was achieving for himself in scientific and medical circles. He became Director of the Pathological Institute and remained in charge of the clinical section of the hospital for the next 20 years.

Scientific Contributions

Cell Biology

Illustration of Virchow's cell theory
Virchow is credited with many important discoveries. His most widely known scientific contribution is his cell theory, which built on the work ofTheodor Schwann. He is cited as the first to recognize leukemia cells.[3] He was one of the first to accept the work of Robert Remak, who showed the origins of cells was the division of pre-existing cells.[4] He did not initially accept the evidence for cell division, believing it only occurs in certain types of cells. When it dawned on him that Remak might be right, in 1855, he published Remak's work as his own, which caused a falling out between the two.[5] This work, Virchow encapsulated in the epigram Omnis cellula e cellula ("Every cell originates from another existing cell like it."), which he published in 1858. (The epigram was actually coined by François-Vincent Raspail, but popularized by Virchow.)[6] It is a rejection of the concept of spontaneous generation, which held that organisms could arise from nonliving matter. For example, maggots were believed to spontaneously appear in decaying meat; Francesco Redi carried out experiments which disproved this notion and coined the maxim Omne vivum ex ovo ("Every living thing comes from a living thing" — literally "from an egg"); Virchow (and his predecessors) extended this to state that the only source for a living cell was another living cell.

Anatomy

Another significant credit relates to the discovery, made approximately simultaneously by Virchow and Charles Emile Troisier, that an enlarged left supraclavicular node is one of the earliest signs of gastrointestinal malignancy, commonly of the stomach, or less commonly, lung cancer. This has become known as Virchow's node and simultaneously Troisier's sign.

Thromboembolism

Virchow is also known for elucidating the mechanism of pulmonary thromboembolism, coining the term embolism and thrombosis. He noted that blood clots in the pulmonary artery originate first from venous thrombi, stating: "The detachment of larger or smaller fragments from the end of the softening thrombus which are carried along by the current of blood and driven into remote vessels. This gives rise to the very frequent process on which I have bestowed the name of Embolia". Having made these initial discoveries based on autopsies, he proceeded to put forward a scientific hypothesis; that pulmonary thrombi are transported from the veins of the leg and that the blood has the ability to carry such an object. He then proceeded to prove this hypothesis through well-designed experiments, repeated numerous times to consolidate evidence, and with meticulously detailed methodology. This work rebuked a claim made by the eminent French pathologist Jean Cruveilhier that phlebitis led to clot development and therefore coagulation was the main consequence of venous inflammation. This was a view held by many before Virchow's work. Related to this research, Virchow described the factors contributing to venous thrombosis, Virchow's triad.[2]

Pathology

Furthermore, Virchow founded the medical fields of cellular pathology and comparative pathology (comparison of diseases common to humans and animals). His very innovative work may be viewed as between that of Morgagni, whose work Virchow studied, and that of Paul Ehrlich, who studied at the Charité while Virchow was developing microscopic pathology there. One of Virchow's major contributions to German medical education was to encourage the use of microscopes by medical students, and he was known for constantly urging his students to "think microscopically".

Autopsy

Virchow also developed a standard method of autopsy procedure, named for him, and many of his techniques are still used today.

Anthropology and prehistory biology

In 1869, Virchow founded the Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory (Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte) which was very influential in coordinating and intensifying German archaeological research, and of which he was several times president. For his contributions in German archaeology, the Rudolf Virchow lecture is held annually in his honour. In 1879, he made a journey to the site of Troy, described in Beiträge zur Landeskunde in Troas (1879) and Alttrojanische Gräber und Schädel (1882).[1] In 1885, he launched a study ofcraniometry, which gave surprising results contradictory to contemporary scientific racist theories on the "Aryan race", leading him to denounce the "Nordic mysticism" in the 1885 Anthropology Congress in KarlsruheJosef Kollmann , a collaborator of Virchow, stated in the same congress that the people of Europe, be they German, Italian, English or French, belonged to a "mixture of various races", furthermore declaring the "results of craniology" led to "struggle against any theory concerning the superiority of this or that European race" on others.

FROM : WIKIPEDIA


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