Rudolf Virchow
The 'father of modern pathology,' he emphasized that diseases arise from changes in cells, not humors.
Most quoted
"The cell is the ultimate morphological unit in which there is any manifestation of life, and we must not imagine that it is a mere aggregation of elementary particles."
— from Die Cellularpathologie in ihrer Begründung auf physiologische und pathologische Gewebelehre, 1858
"The improvement of medicine would eventually prolong human life, but improvement of social conditions could achieve this result more rapidly and more successfully."
"The characteristic feature of all infectious diseases is that they are caused by the transfer of a living agent from a diseased to a healthy individual."
All quotes by Rudolf Virchow (361)
To study the living, we must study the dead.
The true physician is a philosopher, and the true philosopher is a physician.
The cell is the true anatomical basis of all vegetative as well as animal life.
The physician's highest and only calling is to make sick people healthy.
The scientific method is the only way to arrive at truth.
The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.
The pathologist is the physician of the dead, the clinician is the physician of the living.
The physician should be a teacher, and the patient a student.
The more we know, the more we realize how much we don't know.
The physician who knows only medicine, knows not even medicine.
The greatest danger to our health is ignorance.
The pathologist is the ultimate arbiter of truth in medicine.
The human body is a microcosm of the universe.
The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
If you want to understand disease, you must understand life.
The physician is a servant of humanity.
The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.
The true physician treats not the disease, but the patient.
The most dangerous of all diseases is the disease of not knowing.
The pathologist's microscope is the physician's third eye.
Contemporaries of Rudolf Virchow
Other Medicines born within 50 years of Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902).