Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1658

KARL VON ROKITANSKY (1804-1878) Handbuch der pathologischen Anatomie. Braumüller & Seidel 1842-1846 Vol. I: 572 pp.; Vol. II: xiii, 882 pp.; Vol. III: xiv, 632 pp. 21.1 cm.

Rokitansky rightly may be regarded as the finest anatomical pathologist of his age. It was largely through his influence that the Vienna School reblossomed into world prominence. Although he never practiced medicine, his studies and descriptions of structural changes in disease, based on over 30,000 autopsies performed while he was director of Vienna's Pathological Institute, had an enormous impact on clinical medicine. The number of original observations in his Handbuch is staggering. Included here are the first differentiation between lobar and lobular pneumonia, the first pathological account of spondylolisthesis, the first accurate description of acute yellow atrophy of the liver, and the correct classification of patent ductus arteriosis as a congenital lesion. Not without its shortcomings, the work includes Rokitansky's anachronistic humoral disease theory which was criticized by Virchow (see No. 1890 ff.), then professor of anatomy in Berlin. Rokitansky admitted the error and rewrote the entire work. In spite of such theoretical miscalculations, Rokitansky revealed more clearly than any of his predecessors the natural history of disease and its structural manifestations.

See Related Record(s): 1890

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 2293

Gift of John Martin, M.D.