[Rudolf Virchow 1821-1902. Physician, politician, historian and anthropologist]

Rudolf Virchow was born in Pomerania in 1821 in Prussia/Germany. His father was a cashier. He started his medical studies in 1839 and finished them in 1843. He became one of the most famous physicians of the 19th century, as he founded the "Cellular pathology" theory. This claims that disease and pathological change start in the cell and nowhere else. The ruling medical dogma at that time the "humoral pathology" stated that "body fluids" were in inbalance when a person got sick. Virchow's studies cleaned this out and the hallmark of the "cellular pathology" sounded "omnis cellula e cellula" ("behind every cell there is another cell"). Virchow was a Professor of Anathomy, Pathology and Physiology and was about the first medical doctor to introduce leukemia, embolus, trombosis and cancerous lymphoid glands into our vocabulary. He worked most of his time in Berlin. He was also a famous and powerful politician throughout his entire life, fighting for political rights, universal suffrage, economic reforms and loosening of the grip of the church. He was also struggling for peace and international understanding. Moreover he was engaged in Anthropology and active as an Archeologist-Historian. He was married and had 6 children. Rudolf Virchow is one of the most famous scientist of the nineteenth-century, referred to as a person of most authority by, among others, Darwin and Nietsche. He was the writer of numerous medical books, the founder of medical journals and the leader of several scientifical organizations. He died in 1902 in Berlin in the aftermath of a tramway-accident when he was on his way to an archeological scientific meeting, at 81 years of age.