Editing Rudolf Virchow (section)

==Politics and social medicine==
[[File:Rudolf Virchow NLM4.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Rudolf Virchow]]
More than a laboratory physician, Virchow was an impassioned advocate for social and political reform. His ideology involved social inequality as the cause of diseases that requires political actions,<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Mackenbach|first1=J P|title=Politics is nothing but medicine at a larger scale: reflections on public health's biggest idea|journal=Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health|date=2009|volume=63|issue=3|pages=181–184|doi=10.1136/jech.2008.077032|pmid=19052033|s2cid=24916013}}</ref> stating:

<blockquote>Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale. Medicine, as a social science, as the science of human beings, has the obligation to point out problems and to attempt their theoretical solution: the politician, the practical anthropologist, must find the means for their actual solution... Science for its own sake usually means nothing more than science for the sake of the people who happen to be pursuing it. Knowledge which is unable to support action is not genuine – and how unsure is activity without understanding... If medicine is to fulfill her great task, then she must enter the political and social life... The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and the social problems should largely be solved by them.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Wittern-Sterzel|first1=R|title=Politics is nothing else than large scale medicine – Rudolf Virchow and his role in the development of social medicine|journal=Verhandlungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Pathologie|year=2003|volume=87|pages=150–157|pmid=16888907}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=J R A|title=Virchow misquoted, part-quoted, and the real McCoy|journal=Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health|year=2006|volume=60|issue=8|page=671|pmc=2588080}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Rudolf Virchow on Pathology Education|url=http://www.pathguy.com/virchow.htm|website=The Pathology Guy|access-date=28 November 2014|archive-date=14 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141014005100/http://www.pathguy.com/virchow.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> </blockquote>

Virchow actively worked for social change to fight poverty and diseases. His methods involved pathological observations and statistical analyses. He called this new field of social medicine a "[[social science]]". His most important influences could be noted in Latin America, where his disciples introduced his social medicine.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Porter|first1=Dorothy|title=How did social medicine evolve, and where is it heading?|journal=PLOS Medicine|date=2006|volume=3|issue=10|pages=e399|doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0030399|pmid=17076552|pmc=1621092 |doi-access=free }}</ref> For example, his student [[Max Westenhöfer]] became Director of Pathology at the medical school of the [[University of Chile]], becoming the most influential advocate. One of Westenhöfer's students, [[Salvador Allende]], through social and political activities based on Virchow's doctrine, became the 29th [[President of Chile]] (1970–1973).<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Waitzkin|first1=H|last2=Iriart|first2=C|last3=Estrada|first3=A|last4=Lamadrid|first4=S|title=Social medicine then and now: lessons from Latin America|journal=American Journal of Public Health|date=2001|volume=91|issue=10|pages=1592–1601|pmid=11574316|pmc=1446835|doi=10.2105/ajph.91.10.1592}}</ref>

Virchow made himself known as a pronounced pro-democracy progressive in the year of revolutions in Germany (1848). His political views are evident in his ''Report on the Typhus Outbreak of Upper Silesia'', where he states that the outbreak could not be solved by treating individual patients with drugs or with minor changes in food, housing, or clothing laws, but only through radical action to promote the advancement of an entire population, which could be achieved only by "full and unlimited democracy" and "education, freedom and prosperity".<ref name=brown2006/>

These radical statements and his minor part in the revolution caused the government to remove him from his position in 1849, although within a year he was reinstated as prosector "on probation". [[Prosector]] was a secondary position in the hospital. This secondary position in Berlin convinced him to accept the chair of pathological anatomy at the medical school in the provincial town of Würzburg, where he continued his scientific research. Six years later, he had attained fame in scientific and medical circles, and was reinstated at Charité Hospital.<ref name="Bagot2008"/>

In 1859, he became a member of the Municipal Council of Berlin and began his career as a civic reformer. Elected to the Prussian Diet in 1862, he became leader of the Radical or Progressive party; and from 1880 to 1893, he was a member of the [[Reichstag (German Empire)|Reichstag]].<ref name=americana/> He worked to improve healthcare conditions for Berlin citizens, especially by working towards modern water and sewer systems. Virchow is credited as a founder of anthropology<ref>[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/rxforsurvival/series/champions/paul_farmer.html Rx for Survival. Global Health Champions. Paul Farmer, MD, PhD | PBS] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221208011745/https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/rxforsurvival/series/champions/paul_farmer.html |date=8 December 2022 }}. www.pbs.org</ref> and of social medicine, frequently focusing on the fact that disease is never purely biological, but often socially derived or spread.<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.2105/AJPH.96.12.2102|title=Report on the Typhus Epidemic in Upper Silesia|year=2006|last1=Virchow|first1=Rudolf Carl|journal=American Journal of Public Health
|volume=96|issue=12|pages=2102–2105|pmid=17123938|pmc=1698167 }}</ref>

===The duel challenge by Bismarck===

As a co-founder and member of the liberal party ''Deutsche Fortschrittspartei'', he was a leading political antagonist of Bismarck. He was opposed to Bismarck's excessive military budget, which angered Bismarck sufficiently that he challenged Virchow to a duel in 1865.<ref name=americana>{{Cite Americana|wstitle=Virchow, Rudolf|year=1920}}</ref> Virchow declined because he considered dueling an uncivilized way to solve a conflict.<ref>{{cite web|title=Das verweigerte Duell: Bismarck gegen Virchow|website=www.dhm.de|publisher=[[Deutsches Historisches Museum]]|url=https://www.dhm.de/archiv/ausstellungen/gruenderzeit/exposes/Lennig%20-%20Das%20verweigerte%20Duell%20-%20Bismarck%20gegen%20Virchow.pdf|url-status=live|access-date=|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201112041631/https://www.dhm.de/archiv/ausstellungen/gruenderzeit/exposes/Lennig%20-%20Das%20verweigerte%20Duell%20-%20Bismarck%20gegen%20Virchow.pdf|archive-date=12 November 2020|last=Petra Lennig|date=|year=|language=|pages=|quote=}}</ref> Various English-language sources purport a different version of events, the so-called "Sausage Duel". It has Virchow, being the one challenged and therefore entitled to choose the weapons, selecting two pork sausages, one loaded with ''[[Trichinella]]'' larvae, the other safe; Bismarck declined.<ref name=myron/><ref>{{cite book |last=Isaac Asimov |title=Treasury of Humor |publisher=Mariner Books |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-395-57226-9 |page=[https://archive.org/details/isaacasimovstrea00asim/page/202 202] |url=https://archive.org/details/isaacasimovstrea00asim/page/202 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |year=2008 |last1=Cardiff |first1=Robert D |last2=Ward |first2=Jerrold M |last3=Barthold |first3=Stephen W |doi=10.1038/labinvest.3700695|pmid=18040269 |title='One medicine—one pathology': are veterinary and human pathology prepared? |volume=88 |pages=18–26|journal=Laboratory Investigation |issue=1|pmc=7099239 }}</ref> However, there are no German-language documents confirming this version.

===''Kulturkampf''===
Virchow supported Bismarck in an attempt to reduce the political and social influence of the Catholic Church, between 1871 and 1887.<ref name="Progs">"This anti-Catholic crusade was also taken up by the Progressives, especially Rudolf Virchow, though Richter himself was tepid in his occasional support." [https://www.mises.org/story/1787 Authentic German Liberalism of the 19th century] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090610035217/http://www.crea.polytechnique.fr/index.htm |date=10 June 2009 }} by Ralph Raico</ref> He remarked that the movement was acquiring "the character of a great struggle in the interest of humanity". He called it ''Kulturkampf'' ("culture struggle")<ref name=kulturkampf/> during the discussion of [[Adalbert Falk]]'s [[Falk Laws|May Laws]] (''Maigesetze'').<ref name="virchrow">A leading German school teacher, Rudolf Virchow, characterized Bismarck's struggle with the Catholic Church as a Kulturkampf{{snd}} a fight for culture{{snd}} by which Virchow meant a fight for liberal, rational principles against the dead weight of medieval traditionalism, obscurantism, and authoritarianism." from [http://www.hermes-press.com/triumph_civ.htm The Triumph of Civilization] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061113151759/http://www.hermes-press.com/triumph_civ.htm |date=13 November 2006 }} by Norman D. Livergood and "Kulturkampf \Kul*tur"kampf'\, n. [G., fr. kultur, cultur, culture + kampf fight.] (Ger. Hist.) Lit., culture war; – a name, originating with Virchow (1821–1902), given to a struggle between the Roman Catholic Church and the German government" [http://www.freedict.co.uk/words/k/kulturkampf.php Kulturkampf] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412044417/http://www.freedict.co.uk/words/k/kulturkampf.php |date=12 April 2021 }} in freedict.co.uk</ref> Virchow was respected in Masonic circles,<ref name="Virchowrespected">"Rizal's Berlin associates, or perhaps the word "patrons" would give their relation better, were men as esteemed in Masonry as they were eminent in the scientific world—Virchow, for example." in "[[Jose Rizal]] as a Mason" by Austin Craig, ''The Builder Magazine'', [http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/the_builder_1916_august.htm August 1916 – Volume II – Number 8] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412045737/http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/the_builder_1916_august.htm |date=12 April 2021 }}</ref> and according to one source<ref name="VirchowMason">"It was a heady atmosphere for the young Brother, and Masons in Germany, Dr. Rudolf Virchow and Dr. [[Fedor Jagor]], were instrumental in his becoming a member of the Berlin Ethnological and Anthropological Societies." From [http://srjarchives.tripod.com/1998-10/PEARSON.HTM Dimasalang: The Masonic Life Of Dr. Jose P. Rizal By Reynold S. Fajardo, 33°] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412044450/http://srjarchives.tripod.com/1998-10/PEARSON.HTM |date=12 April 2021 }} by Fred Lamar Pearson, Scottish Rite Journal, October 1998</ref> may have been a [[freemason]], though no official record of this has been found.