Editing Rudolf Virchow (section)

===Cell biology===
[[File:Virchow-cell.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|Illustration of Virchow's [[cell theory]]]]

Virchow is credited with several key discoveries. His most widely known scientific contribution is his [[cell theory]], which built on the work of [[Theodor Schwann]]. He was one of the first to accept the work of [[Robert Remak]], who showed that the origin of cells was the division of pre-existing cells.<ref>Lois N. Magner ''A history of the life sciences'', Marcel Dekker, 2002, {{ISBN|0-8247-0824-5}}, p. 185</ref> He did not initially accept the evidence for cell division and believed that it occurs only in certain types of cells. When it dawned on him in 1855 that Remak might be right, he published Remak's work as his own, causing a falling-out between the two.<ref name=BBC>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00m5w92|publisher=BBC4|title=The Cell: Episode 1 The Hidden Kingdom|author=Rutherford, Adam|date=August 2009|access-date=16 March 2010|archive-date=1 July 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220701180651/https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00m5w92|url-status=live}}</ref>

Virchow was particularly influenced in cellular theory by the work of [[John Goodsir]] of Edinburgh, whom he described as "one of the earliest and most acute observers of cell-life both physiological and pathological". Virchow dedicated his ''magnum opus'' ''Die Cellularpathologie''  to Goodsir.<ref>Gardner, D. John Goodsir FRS (1814–1867): Pioneer of cytology and microbiology. ''J Med. Biog.'' 2015;25:114–122</ref> Virchow's cellular theory was encapsulated in the epigram ''Omnis cellula e cellula'' ("all cells (come) from cells"), which he published in 1855.<ref name="kuiper" /><ref name="Bagot2008" /><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Tixier-Vidal|first1=Andrée|title=De la théorie cellulaire à la théorie neuronale|journal=Biologie Aujourd'hui|year=2011|volume=204|issue=4|pages=253–266|doi=10.1051/jbio/2010015|pmid=21215242|s2cid=196608425 |url=https://www.biologie-journal.org/10.1051/jbio/2010015/pdf |language=fr}}</ref> (The [[epigram]] was actually coined by [[François-Vincent Raspail]], but popularized by Virchow.)<ref name="pmid16810425">{{cite journal |vauthors=Tan SY, Brown J |title=Rudolph Virchow (1821–1902): "pope of pathology" |journal=Singapore Med J |volume=47 |issue=7 |pages=567–568 |date=July 2006 |pmid=16810425 |url=http://www.sma.org.sg/smj/4707/4707ms1.pdf |access-date=22 July 2008 |archive-date=21 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220521021627/https://www.sma.org.sg/smj/4707/4707ms1.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> It is a rejection of the concept of spontaneous generation, which held that organisms could arise from nonliving matter. For example, maggots were believed to appear spontaneously in decaying meat; [[Francesco Redi]] carried out experiments that disproved this notion and coined the maxim ''[[Omne vivum ex ovo]]'' ("Every living thing comes from a living thing" — literally "from an egg"); Virchow (and his predecessors) extended this to state that the only source for a living cell was another living cell.<ref>Virchow, R. (1858). Cellular pathology: As based upon physiological and pathological histology, 20 lectures delivered in the Pathological Institute of Berlin, during Feb. Mar. and Apr. 1858. New York: De Witt.</ref>