Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow Quotes
First, it must be a pleasure to study the human body the most miraculous masterpiece of nature and to learn about the smallest vessel and the smallest fiber. But second and most important, the medical profession gives the opportunity to alleviate the troubles of the body, to ease the pain, to console a person who is in distress, and to lighten the hour of death of many a sufferer.
Virchow, Rudolf. "Ein Blick auf das zukünftige Leben." 1839. Quoted in Ackerknecht, Erwin H. Rudolf Virchow: Doctor, Statesman, Anthropologist, University of Wisconsin Press, 1953, p. 6.
This was a time when the church and establishment only recognized the Bible and the views of the authorities as a means of knowing and validating knowledge. By appealing to the individual’s own judgment and empiricism he was far ahead of his time. See {586127}.
Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow was a German physician, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist, writer, editor, and politician. He is known as "the father of modern pathology" and as the founder of social medicine, and to his colleagues, the "Pope of medicine".