Science WebQuests

Rudolf Virchow was a German doctor. Virchow’s many discoveries include being the first to recognize and name leukemia, which is a cancer of blood-forming tissues that hinders the body's ability to fight infection.  He named the disease by combining the Greek words leukos (white) and aima (blood).

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A man of boundless energy, he simultaneously had four careers: medical scientist, editor of several medical journals, politician, and anthropologist. Although he played a tremendous part in ridding medicine of unscientific practices, he also made some rather large scientific errors.

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Virchow recognized the cell as the basic unit of structure and function in all living things.  He is known for his theory of 1858, that states “every cell originates from another existing cell like it”.

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Virchow was also the first person to carry out systematic autopsies involving microscopic examination of tissue. One such autopsy in 1845 led to his first published contribution to science.