Rudolf Ludwig Virchow (1821-1902) earned a medical degree at the Friedrich-Wilhelms Institute in Berlin in 1843. He coined the name “leukemia” in 1845 in the report of an autopsy, as well as adding various other terms to medical nomenclature. In 1847, he founded the journal now known as Virchow’s Archiv, and remained its editor until he died. Because of his pro-democratic activity during the 1848 revolution, he had to leave Berlin in 1849. He served as professor of pathology in Würzburg until 1856, when he returned to Berlin as head of a new Institute of Pathology. He published Die Cellularpathologie (Cellular Pathology), his most famous work, in 1858. Virchow’s pathologic research ended in 1866, although his systematization of the conduct of autopsies is dated to 1874. Elective political activity began in 1859, when he began a long tenure on the Berlin City Council, focusing particularly on matters of public health. In 1882, he became president of the Berlin Medical Society, and in 1893 Rector of the University of Berlin. Virchow was a member of the Prussian parliament from 1880-93, where he was a bitter adversary of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.
- Medal
Silver. 1902. Unsigned. Posthumous. Honoring the great man, physician and teacher on his death.
- Size
33 mm
- Artist
Unknown
- Obverse
Clothed bust to right, wearing spectacles, framed by laurel branches crossed and tied below; in field at right, RUDOLPH / VIRCHOW in two lines; the whole within a beaded circle.
- Reverse
DEM / EDLEN MENSCHEN / DEM GROSSEN ARTZ / UND LEHRER / cross symbol, 5 . SEPTBR. / 1902 in six lines framed below and at left by palm and laurel branches, with urn on its side on left and staff of Aesculapius topped with a torch on right of the date; the whole within a beaded circle.
- Edge
Number 990 incused
- Ref
Freeman 544; Storer 3636
