Virchow Quotes & Sayings

At age twenty-six, Virchow wrote passionately that terrible social conditions in an impoverished part of Germany called Upper Silesia were the cause of a malaria and dysentery epidemic. His recommendation to the German government: if it wanted to do something about the epidemic, it needed to end the malnutrition, overcrowding, and poor hygiene. Better yet, he added, allow for a full and unlimited democracy in Upper Silesia. — Tracy Kidder

Imprisoned quacks are always replaced by new ones. — Rudolf Virchow

If we would serve science, we must extend her limits, not only as far as our own knowledge is concerned, but in the estimation of others. — Rudolf Virchow

Only those who regard healing as the ultimate goal of their efforts can, therefore, be designated as physicians. — Rudolf Virchow

There can be no scientific dispute with respect to faith, for science and faith exclude one another. — Rudolf Virchow

My politics were those of prophylaxis, my opponents preferred those of palliation. — Rudolf Virchow

Brevity in writing is the best insurance for its perusal. — Rudolf Virchow

Disease is not something personal and special, but only a manifestation of life under modified conditions, operating according to the same laws as apply to the living body at all times, from the first moment until death. — Rudolf Virchow

No doubt science cannot admit of compromises, and can only bring out the complete truth. Hence there must be controversy, and the strife may be, and sometimes must be, sharp. But must it even then be personal? Does it help science to attack the man as well as the statement? On the contrary, has not science the noble privilege of carrying on its controversies without personal quarrels? — Rudolf Virchow

Pathology, probably more than any other branch of science, suffers from heroes and hero-worship. Rudolf Virchow has been its archangel and William Welch its John the Baptist, while Paracelsus and Cohnheim have been relegated to the roles of Lucifer and Beelzebub ... Actually, there are no heroes in Pathology-all of the great thoughts permitting advance have been borrowed from other fields, and the renaissance of pathology stems not from pathology itself but from the philosophers Kant and Goethe. — Harry S.N. Greene

If popular medicine gave the people wisdom as well as knowledge, it would be the best protection for scientific and well-trained physicians. — Rudolf Virchow

Marriages are not normally made to avoid having children. — Rudolf Virchow

Belief has no place as far as science reaches, and may be first permitted to take root where science stops. — Rudolf Virchow

It is the curse of humanity that it learns to tolerate even the most horrible situations by habituation, that it forgets the most shameful happenings in the daily shame of events, and that it can hardly understand when individuals aim to destroy this infamy. — Rudolf Virchow

Cellular pathology is not an end if one cannot see any alteration in the cell. Chemistry brings the clarification of living processes nearer than does anatomy. Each anatomical change must have been preceded by a chemical one. — Rudolf Virchow

Laws should be made, not against quacks but against superstition. — Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow

Belief begins where science leaves off and ends where science begins. — Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow

Medical education does not exist to provide students with a way of making a living, but to ensure the health of the community. — Rudolf Virchow

Medical statistics will be our standard of measurement: we will weigh life for life and see where the dead lie thicker, among the workers or among the privileged. — Rudolf Virchow

When others lives were at stake, Virchow's courage had no limit. That is the definition of a hero. — Leslie Dunn

As long as vitalism and spiritualism are open questions so long will the gateway of science be open to mysticism. — Rudolf Virchow

The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and the social problems should largely be solved by them. — Rudolf Virchow

The study of eugenics had its beginning in Germany, sometime after the mid-19th century mark, stimulated by volkish concerns for Aryan racial purity. Rudolf Virchow, pathologist and politician, began a study of national ethnic statistics in 1871, convinced that the majority of Germans would prove to be of relatively pure Nordic descent. The results of his studies proved otherwise. According to Virchow, the obvious solution was to set about Nordicizing the debased German stock. — Jim Keith

Belief cannot be reckoned with in terms of science, for science and faith are mutually exclusive. — Rudolf Virchow

'Science in itself' is nothing, for it exists only in the human beings who are its bearers. 'Science for its own sake' usually means nothing more than science for the sake of the people who happen to be pursuing it. — Rudolf Virchow

Body: A cell state in which every cell is a citizen. — Rudolf Virchow

The task of science, therefore, is not to attack the objects of faith, but to establish the limits beyond which knowledge cannot go and found a unified self-consciousness within these limits. — Rudolf Virchow

Between animal and human medicine, there is no dividing line-nor should there be. — Rudolf Virchow

The task of science is to stake out the limits of the knowable, and to center consciousness within them. — Rudolf Virchow

The body is a cell state in which every cell is a citizen. Disease is merely the conflict of the citizens of the state brought about by the action of external forces. — Rudolf Virchow

Virchow was the perfect role model for anyone who wanted to change the world, or at least lessen the inequality between the rich and poor. One of Farmer's favorite Virchow quotes was "The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and the social problems should largely be solved by them." Virchow viewed the world in a way that made sense to Farmer, his vision a comprehensive one that included pathology - the study of disease - with social medicine, politics, and anthropology. Farmer, — Tracy Kidder

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. — Rudolf Virchow

This passion, so unordered and yet so potent, explains the capacity for teaching that one frequently observes in scientific men of high attainments in their specialties-for example, Huxley, Ostwald, Karl Ludwig, Virchow, Billroth, Jowett, William G. Sumner, Halsted and Osler-men who knew nothing whatever about the so-called science of pedagogy, and would have derided its alleged principles if they had heard them stated. — H.L. Mencken