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Why did the Prussian government send Rudolf Virchow to Upper Silesia in 1848?
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Rudolf Virchow
German pathologist and statesman Rudolf Virchow was one of the most prominent physicians of the 19th century.
In early 1848, the Prussian government appointed Rudolf Virchow to investigate an outbreak of typhus in Upper Silesia.
Virchow’s subsequent report was significant because it attributed the cause of the epidemic to poor social conditions and government negligence rather than purely medical factors. This conclusion annoyed the Prussian authorities, though they were simultaneously preoccupied with the Revolutions of 1848 occurring in Berlin at the time.1