Cellular Pathology detonated through the world of medicine. Generations of anatomic pathologists had thought about diseases as the breakdown of tissues, organs, and organ systems. Virchow argued that they had missed the real source of the illness. Since cells were the unit blocks of life and physiology, Virchow reasoned, then the pathological changes observed in diseased tissues and organs should be traced back to pathological changes in the units of the affected tissue—in other words, to cells. To understand pathology, doctors needed to look for essential disruptions not just in visible
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