Rudolf Virchow And A Historical Study Of The Formation And Development Of Cytopathology In The 19th Century

Rudolf Virchow(1821-1902),a German scientist,published cytopathology in 1858,which means the birth of cytopathology,Cytopathology attributes the occurrence of pathological state to the change of cells,which is a kind of progress for pathology.Before the birth of this theory,the theory of cell has appeared,the main content is that the cell is the basic structural unit of life,and the cell is produced by a kind of undifferentiated homogeneous material.Of course,corresponding to the theory,there were some researches on pathology at that time.At first,scientists accumulated knowledge of pathology through autopsy,and established pathological anatomy in the 18 th century.With the development of natural science,the auxiliary tools of scientific research have gradually appeared,and microscope has also contributed to the development of pathology.The emergence of cell theory,the development of physiology in the 17 th century,the use of microscope and the establishment of pathological anatomy in the 18 th century jointly promoted the emergence of cell pathology.The main content of Virchow’s cytopathology can be summarized as follows Omnis cellula e cellula;Cell is the basic unit of human life activity;The body is the sum of cells;The sum of cell changes is the essence of disease.The essence of pathological process is attributed to the change of cells,which lays the foundation for the development of science.It also puts forward the view that the progress of medical knowledge is based on the scientific research of normal or pathological life process,which improves the previous way of relying on hypotheses to complete scientific theory,and requires empirical conclusion.Of course,there are also some shortcomings in his cytopathology,such as paying too much attention to local changes and neglecting the whole.In addition,due to the limitation of the development of natural science and technology and the influence of mechanical materialism at that time,Virchow himself overemphasized that the occurrence of diseases was due to cellular changes,However,completely ignoring the effects of nervous system and hormones on the whole body leads to some limitations in cell pathology.For such a phenomenon,we should learn to treat cell pathology dialectically and analyze it comprehensively and objectively.In a word,cytopathology is still a theory with strong progressive significance,representing part of the views of the academic circles at that time,which can provide reference for our research today.The research on the theory of cytopathology and Virchow’s own research in pathology and other fields provide reference for the development of this discipline:In the aspect of humanistic care,it puts forward the view that medicine can not do without social environment and that the essence of medicine is humanitarianism;In the aspect of Research methods,the method of analogy is put forward;In the analysis of metaphysics,it reflects the way to think about the problem with the development and dialectic perspective.It also contributed to the academic researchers some ways to think about the problems,including virchow’s own spirit,which is worth learning!...