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Disease, Life and Man: Selected Essays
Book by Virchow, Rudolf Ludwig Karl
- GenresEssaysMedicineNonfiction
284 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1958
About the author
Rudolf Virchow
1,147 books12 followersRudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow (13 October 1821 – 5 September 1902) was a doctor, anthropologist, public health activist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist and politician. He is referred to as the "Father of Pathology," and founded the field of Social Medicine.
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June 3, 2022
It is surprising to people, even other scientists I've spoken to, that less than 200 years have passed since we began to understand the cellular basis of the bodily functions. During the 19th century, classical cell theory was gradually formulated to state that 1. animals are made of cells, 2. the cell is the basic unit of life, and 3. all cells are derived from other cells. To a lay audience, it may not be very clear why this is important. It is the universality of their truth is what makes these elegant and simple statements so special and remarkable. This collection of essays comes from the perspective of someone that was cutting through the scientific confusion of his time and is certainly worth a read if you are curious to see a first person account of this historical process in biology.
With this book, Virchow navigates us along the history of medicine prior to the 19th century, the ways that these core ideas developed, and points the reader to the experiments and findings that were critical to their elaboration. The book is not a text book, so often Virchow simply mentions 'the influential work' of others. While to contemporaries these were perhaps clear references, our current scientific education have not prevented the fogs of time to apply their veils over this history. I was frequently left needing to go look up the individual myself - something I usually do when reading anything, but this may be a turn off for some. This 1958 edition has a healthy collection of footnotes to the many obscure references that Virchow makes. I was thankful for being pointed in the direction of several other important scientists that I never learned about in school (or perhaps forgot about) from this book. A brief list would include William Harvey, Robert Koch, Louis Pastuer, Ilya Mechnikov, Theodor Schwann, and Mattias Schleiden.
There are several really special aspects to reading a primary source like this. Interestingly, Virchow consistently spends a lot of time throughout his writing to mention and critique the trendy, misguided, and misleading theories of his day. And there were many ideas and theories going around at that time that purported to be actual healing medicine. They ranged from the absurd (hypnotic magnetic healing of Mesmer) to the plausible (that bacteria spontaneously emerged from diseased tissue). This collection being chronological, we see how throughout his career he routinely communicated the ways that the alternative approaches were wrong in order to instill these criticisms in as many people as he could. This fact even more underscores the way that the tenets of cell theory shine through this period of extreme confusion. It is a sobering reminder of how easy it is to be led astray in understanding and at the same time inspiring to be reminded that we can always find a way to the right orientation with respect to the truth.
Most fascinating and special about this primary source was to see how he described the wide open questions and future directions that he saw for science - the graspings of straws and wisps of problems, blind to what answers the future would offer but impressively certain of what was out there to be discovered. Genetics and immunology were what that stood out to me as really interesting examples. Others include development of the organism and also of course the development of various diseases. It was only a matter of time before these topics became thoroughly explored only within a few decades of Virchow's death.
There is a lot of information in this book and it puts the burden on the reader to sift through what content they want to derive from it. For this reason it is hard to read at times and I feel like I forgot a lot of the material - but not all. It was really impressive overall to see the kind of clarity one can have despite being bogged down in the midst of a developing science. Because I am still early in my education I know a lot of the references went over my head, but there were still many I did retain and I am satisfied with that. In general this book helped me learn a lot about the history of biology, helped me to better understand a culture of doing influential and real science, and provided an example of the kinds of aims to aspire to. Add this to your list in your search for your scientific heroes.
With this book, Virchow navigates us along the history of medicine prior to the 19th century, the ways that these core ideas developed, and points the reader to the experiments and findings that were critical to their elaboration. The book is not a text book, so often Virchow simply mentions 'the influential work' of others. While to contemporaries these were perhaps clear references, our current scientific education have not prevented the fogs of time to apply their veils over this history. I was frequently left needing to go look up the individual myself - something I usually do when reading anything, but this may be a turn off for some. This 1958 edition has a healthy collection of footnotes to the many obscure references that Virchow makes. I was thankful for being pointed in the direction of several other important scientists that I never learned about in school (or perhaps forgot about) from this book. A brief list would include William Harvey, Robert Koch, Louis Pastuer, Ilya Mechnikov, Theodor Schwann, and Mattias Schleiden.
There are several really special aspects to reading a primary source like this. Interestingly, Virchow consistently spends a lot of time throughout his writing to mention and critique the trendy, misguided, and misleading theories of his day. And there were many ideas and theories going around at that time that purported to be actual healing medicine. They ranged from the absurd (hypnotic magnetic healing of Mesmer) to the plausible (that bacteria spontaneously emerged from diseased tissue). This collection being chronological, we see how throughout his career he routinely communicated the ways that the alternative approaches were wrong in order to instill these criticisms in as many people as he could. This fact even more underscores the way that the tenets of cell theory shine through this period of extreme confusion. It is a sobering reminder of how easy it is to be led astray in understanding and at the same time inspiring to be reminded that we can always find a way to the right orientation with respect to the truth.
Most fascinating and special about this primary source was to see how he described the wide open questions and future directions that he saw for science - the graspings of straws and wisps of problems, blind to what answers the future would offer but impressively certain of what was out there to be discovered. Genetics and immunology were what that stood out to me as really interesting examples. Others include development of the organism and also of course the development of various diseases. It was only a matter of time before these topics became thoroughly explored only within a few decades of Virchow's death.
There is a lot of information in this book and it puts the burden on the reader to sift through what content they want to derive from it. For this reason it is hard to read at times and I feel like I forgot a lot of the material - but not all. It was really impressive overall to see the kind of clarity one can have despite being bogged down in the midst of a developing science. Because I am still early in my education I know a lot of the references went over my head, but there were still many I did retain and I am satisfied with that. In general this book helped me learn a lot about the history of biology, helped me to better understand a culture of doing influential and real science, and provided an example of the kinds of aims to aspire to. Add this to your list in your search for your scientific heroes.
Displaying 1 of 1 review