Rokitansky and Virchow: Throes about the scientific term of disease

Abstract

The scientific conception of disease became established in the 19th century and resulted in medicine becoming a branch of the natural sciences. In Vienna, the development of pathoanatomy is closely linked with the work of Carl Rokitansky, who used the postmortem examination to draw conclusions that would guide the physician in making future clinical diagnoses. It were Rokitansky and Skoda who developed the II. Viennese School, the "young Viennese School". The founder of the new school of medicine was thus a pathoanatomist. In 1846, Rokitansky published the first volume of his "Compendium of General Pathological Anatomy". In Berlin, there was at the time a particularly avid group of young physicians who had learned to "think cellularly". Rudolf Virchow, a member of the group, was asked to review the newly published volume of Rokitansky's compendium. The 25-year-old was particularly scathing in his criticism, determined to prevent a new dyscrasia theory right from the very beginning. For the next edition of his work, Rokitansky rewrote the "compendium" completely, now in natural scientific terms, and in doing so, encouraged Virchow to further develop the natural scientific conception of disease. Rokitansky's factual approval thus gave Virchow valuable support on his way to cellular pathology.