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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

ix

to the understanding of all, what, without it, efforts prolonged for years would be able to render intelligible at most only to a few. As examples I will cite the terms, parenchymatous inflammation, thrombosis and embolia, leukæmia and ichorrhæmia, osteoid and mucous tissue, cheesy and amyloid metamorphosis, and substitution of tissues. New names cannot be avoided, where actual additions to experimental (empirical) knowledge are being treated of.

On the other hand, I have already often been reproached with endeavouring to rehabilitate antiquated views in modern science. In respect to this I can, I think, say with a safe conscience that I am just as little inclined to restore Galen and Paracelsus to the position they formerly held, as I am afraid openly to acknowledge whatever truth there is in their views and observations. In fact, I find not only that the physicians of antiquity and the middle ages had not in all cases their senses shackled by traditional prejudices, but more than this, that among the people common sense has clung to certain truths, notwithstanding the criticism of the learned had pronounced them overthrown. What should hinder me from avowing that the criticism of the learned has not always proved correct, that system has not always been nature, and that a false interpretation does not impair the correctness of the fact? Why should I not retain good expressions, or restore them, even though false ideas have been attached to them? My experience constrains me to regard the term fluxion (active congestion-Wallung)1 as preferable to that of congestion; I cannot help allowing inflammation to be a definite form in which pathological processes display themselves, although I am unable to admit its claims to be regarded as an entity; and I must needs, in spite of the decided counter-statements of many investigators, maintain tubercle to be a miliary granule, and

See the Author's 'Handbuch der speciellen Path. und Therapie,' Vol. I,

p. 141.

epithelioma a heteroplastic, malignant new-formation (cancroid).

Perhaps it is now-a-days a merit to recognise historic rights, for it is indeed astonishing with what levity those very men, who herald forth every trifle, which they have stumbled upon, as a discovery, pass their judgment upon their predecessors. I uphold my own rights, and therefore I also recognize the rights of others. This is the principle I act upon in life, in politics and in science. We owe it to ourselves to defend our rights, for it is the only guarantee for our individual development, and for our influence upon the community at large. Such a defence is no act of vain ambition, and it involves no renunciation of purely scientific aims. For, if we would serve science, we must extend her limits, not only as far as our own knowledge is concerned, but in the estimation of others. Now this estimation depends in a great measure upon the acknowledgment accorded to our rights, upon the confidence placed in our investigations, by others; and this is the reason why I uphold my rights.

In a science so directly practical as that of medicine, and at a time when such a rapid accumulation of facts is taking place, as there is in ours, we are doubly bound to render our knowledge accessible to the whole body of our professional brethren. We would have reform, and not revolution: we would preserve the old, and add the new. But our contemporaries have a confused idea of the results of our activity. For only too much it is apt to appear as though nought but a confused and motley mass of old and new would thereby be obtained; and the necessity of combating rather the false or exclusive doctrines of the more modern, than those of the older writers, produces the impression that our endeavours savour more of revolution than reformation. It is, no doubt, much more agreeable to confine oneself to the investigation and simple publication of what one discovers, and to leave to others to "take it to market" (ver

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

xi

werthen-exploiter), but experience teaches us that this is extremely dangerous, and in the end only turns out to the advantage of those who have the least tenderness of conscience. Let us undertake, therefore, every one of us to fulfil the duties both of an observer and of an instructor.

The lectures, which I here publish with the view of accomplishing this double purpose, have found such very patient auditors, that they may perhaps venture to hope for indulgent readers likewise. How greatly they stand in need of indulgence, I myself feel very strongly. Every kind of lecture can only satisfy the actual hearers; and especially when it is chiefly intended to serve as an explanation of drawings on a board, and microscopical preparations, it must necessarily appear heterogeneous and defective to the reader. When the intention is to give a concise view of a comprehensive subject, it necessarily becomes impossible to bring forward all the arguments that could be advanced, and to support them by the requisite quotations. In lectures such as these too the personal views of the lecturer may seem to be brought forward with undue exclusiveness, but, as it is his business to give a clear exposition of the actual state of the science of which he treats, he is obliged to define with precision the principles, the correctness of which he has proved by his own experience.

I trust therefore that what I offer may not be taken for more than it is intended to be. Those, who have found leisure enough to keep up their knowledge by reading the current medical literature, will find but little that is new in these lectures. The rest will not, by reading them, be spared the trouble of being obliged to study the subjects, which are here only briefly touched upon, more closely in the special histological, physiological and pathological works. But they will at least be in possession of a summary of the discoveries which are the most important as far as the cellular theory is concerned, and they will easily be able to add their more accurate study

of the individual subjects to the connected exposition which I here give them of the whole. Nay, this very exposition may perhaps afford a direct stimulus for such more accurate study; and if it do but this, it will have done enough.

The time at my disposal was not sufficient to enable me to write out and revise a work like this. I was therefore constrained to have the lectures taken down in short-hand, just as they were delivered, and to publish them with but slight alterations. Herr Langenhaun has executed his stenographical task with great care. As far as the shortness of the time permitted, and wherever the text would otherwise have been difficult of apprehension to the inexperienced, I have had woodcuts made from the drawings on the board, and more particularly from the microscopical preparations which were sent round. Completeness in this respect could not be attained, sceing that, even as it is, the publication of the work has been delayed some months in consequence of the preparation of the woodcuts.

RUD. VIRCHOW.

MISDROY; August 20th, 1858.

PREFACE

TO THE

SECOND EDITION.

THE present attempt to bring the results of my experience, which are at variance with what is ordinarily taught, before the notice of the medical public at large, in a connected form, has produced unexpected results; it has found many friends and vigorous opponents. Both of these results are certainly very desirable; for my friends will find in this book no arbitrary settlement of questions, nothing systematical or dogmatical, and my opponents will be compelled at length to abandon their fine phrases and to set to work and examine the matters for themselves. Both can only contribute to the impulsion and advancement of medical science.

But still both have also their depressing point of view. When one has laboured for ten years with all the energy and zeal of which he was capable, and has laid the results of his investigations before the judgment of his contemporaries, one is only too apt to imagine that a considerable part, that perhaps the greater and more important portion of them, would be pretty generally known. This was, as I have learned by experience, not the case with my labours. One of my critics attributes it to my bringing forward too many arguments and lengthy cases in support of my views. It may be so, but then I might

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