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ROKITANSKY, CARL, FREIHERR VON (1804-...

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Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 462 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ROKITANSKY, CARL, FREIHERR VON (1804-1878) , the founder of the See also:Vienna school of pathological See also:anatomy, was See also:born on the 19th of See also:February 1804 at See also:Koniggratz in Bohemia. He studied See also:medicine at See also:Prague and at Vienna, graduating at the latter See also:place in 1828. Soon afterwards he became assistant to Johann See also:Wagner, the See also:professor of pathological anatomy, and succeeded him in 1834 as prosector, being at the same See also:time made extraordinary professor. It was not until ten years later (1844) that he reached the See also:rank of full professor. To his duties as a teacher he added in 1847 the onerous See also:office of medico-legal anatomist to the See also:city, and from 1863 he filled an influential office in the See also:ministry of See also:education and public See also:worship, wherein he had to advise on all routine matters of medical teaching,including patronage. A seat in the upper See also:house of the Reichsrath rewarded his public labours in 1867, and on his retirement from all his offices in 1874 he was made a See also:commander of the See also:Order of See also:Leopold. He joined the Imperial See also:Academy of Sciences as a member in 1848, and became its See also:president in 1869. He was president also of the medical society of the See also:Austrian See also:capital and an honorary member of many See also:foreign See also:societies. On his retirement at the See also:age of seventy his colleagues celebrated the occasion by a See also:function in the aula of the university, where his bust was unveiled. In his leave-taking speech he said that See also:work had always been a See also:pleasure to him and pleasures mostly a toil. His See also:death in Vienna on the 23rd of See also:July 1878 elicited many genuine expressions of See also:affection and of esteem for his upright See also:character. Two of his sons became professors at Vienna, one of See also:astronomy and another of medicine, while a third gained distinction on the lyric See also:stage.

With Rokitansky's name is associated the second See also:

great See also:period of the medical school of Vienna, its first success having been identified with the liberal patronage of it by Maria See also:Theresa and with the fame of See also:Van Swieten, whom the empress had attracted thither from See also:Leiden. The basis of its second reputation was morbid anatomy, together with the precision of clinical diagnosis de-pendent thereon, and associated with the labours of Rokitansky's lifelong friend, See also:Joseph Skoda (1805-1881). The anatomical See also:vogue had begun under Wagner while Rokitansky was still a student; but it reached its highest point while the latter was assistant in the dead-house and afterwards prosector and professor. The See also:enthusiasm for the See also:post-mortem study of disease brought one very serious See also:con-sequence at the outset, in the enormous increase of the death-See also:rate from puerperal See also:fever in the lying-in wards of the See also:general See also:hospital. A comparison between the slight mortality in the wards that were afterwards reserved for the training of midwives and the excessive mortality in those set apart for the training of students proved that the cause was the See also:conveyance of infection from the dead-house by the hands of the latter. The precautions introduced by I. P. See also:Semmelweiss in 1847 proved adequate in removing that See also:grave reproach from the study of morbid anatomy. Another and more lasting consequence of the assiduous pursuit of post-mortem study, counterbalancing somewhat the See also:advantage of a more precise and localized diagnosis, was the loss of faith in the See also:power of drugs to remedy the textural changes—the so-called " See also:nihilism " of the Vienna school. The immediate outcome of Rokitansky's See also:close application to the work of the dead-house was his Handbuch der pathologischen Anatomie (1842–46), in 3 vols., of which the first was published last. The value of the work lies in the second and third volumes, containing succinct descriptions of the visible changes and abnormalities in the several See also:organs and parts of the See also:body. Whenever Rokitansky touched the vital problems of general See also:pathology, as he did in the postponed first See also:volume, he revealed a See also:meta-See also:physical See also:bent, which was strong in him behind all his undoubted See also:powers of outward observation and accurate description.

Being a few years too soon to profit by the microscopic See also:

movement which led to the cellular pathology, he endeavoured to reconcile the old humoral See also:doctrine with his anatomical observations, and to read a new meaning into the doctrine of the various dyscrasias. In 1862 he entered into See also:possession of a new pathological See also:institute, in which he found means, for the first time, to display his extensive collection of specimens in a museum. Although he had no See also:direct See also:share in the newer developments of pathology, he was far from indifferent or reactionary towards them; indeed, the laboratories and chairs for microscopic and experimental pathology and for pathological See also:chemistry were warmly encouraged and aided by him. Next to his Handbuch, of which the See also:Sydenham Society published an See also:English See also:translation in 4 vols. (1849–52), his most important writings were four See also:memoirs in the Denkschriften of the Vienna Academy of Sciences (on the anatomy of See also:goitre, cysts, diseases of See also:arteries, and defects in the septa of the See also:heart), the last as See also:late as 1875. Other papers of less importance brought up the See also:total of his writings to See also:thirty-eight, including three addresses of a philosophical turn, on " Freedom of Inquiry ' (1862), " The See also:Independent Value of Knowledge " (1867) and " The Solidarity of See also:Animal See also:Life " (1869).

End of Article: ROKITANSKY, CARL, FREIHERR VON (1804-1878)

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