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Crownprince Frederick Wilhelm of Prussia was once the hope of the liberal movement in Germany. He embodied and lived a humanistic ideal based on the spirit of the enlightenment. Starting in January 1887 the passionate pipe smoker suffered on an unusual long hoarseness. A polyp of the vocal cord was diagnosed. Although this diagnosis seemed harmless, an odyssee was launched that made history. Rudolf Virchow-the foremost pathologist of that time-was involved in the following histological diagnosis. His role and that of the sprouting histopathology will be presented in this essay.

In December 2012 we celebrated the reconstruction of the Department of Pathology at the Vienna Medical School. This short report presents the evolution of this institute by its directors and their main achievements. From Rokitansky to Kerjaschki we follow the path from the work at the morgue to the modern diagnostic methods für personalised medicine.

Carl Rokitansky was one of the foremost experts and pioneers in pathological anatomy of the 19th century. Virchow and Rokitansky paved the way for the modern specialty of pathology, as we know it today. Whilst Virchow was the doyen of histopathology, Rokitansky's merit was his excellent gross pathology establishing thereby a nosological classification of disease. For this achievement, Virchow called Rokitansky the Lineè of pathology. In spite of his importance little is reported on Rokitansky. If the cause of death is mentioned, it is always stated incorrectly. This error may be due to a misleading certificate of death, which was issued without autopsy. This essay aims to describe Rokitansky's illnesses, particularly in his last months, and to deduce from available evidence the most probable cause of his death - with short explanations for non-medical readers. Briefly, Rokitansky suffered from arteriosclerosis leading to stenocardial attacks (angina pectoris). Rokitansky tried to relieve himself from pain by using chloroform. His personal description of the symptoms in his autobiography and the circumstances of his death clearly indicate a heart attack as the cause of death.

It is now clear that inflammation plays a key role in atherogenesis. As a matter of fact, signs of inflammation of atherosclerotic plaques have been observed for centuries and also constituted the basis for a fierce controversy in the 19th century between the prominent Austrian pathologist Carl von Rokitansky and his German counterpart, Rudolf Virchow. While the former attributed a secondary role to these inflammatory arterial changes, Virchow considered them to be of primary importance. We had the unique opportunity to address this controversy by investigating atherosclerotic specimens from autopsies performed by Carl von Rokitansky up to 178 years ago. Twelve atherosclerotic arteries originally collected between the years 1827 to 1885 were selected from the Collection Rokitansky of the Federal Museum of Pathological Anatomy, Vienna Medical University. Using modern sophisticated immunohistochemical and immunofluorescence techniques, it was shown that various cellular intralesional components, as well as extracellular matrix proteins, were preserved in the historic atherosclerotic specimens. Most importantly, CD3 positive cells were abundant in early lesions, thus, rather supporting Virchows's view, that inflammation is an initiating factor in atherogenesis. Furthermore, we hope to have opened a new and intriguing possibility to study various pathological conditions using valuable historical specimens.

Until recently, Rokitansky and Virchow were thought to have never exchanged letters. Recently, however, a letter from Rokitansky to Virchow dated 1853 was discovered. In this letter, Rokitansky commented on Virchow's discovery of subependymal corpora amylacea. This report comprises an English translation of this letter together with a historical appraisal and a short comment on the importance of corpora amylacea in the brain.

The bicentenary of the birth of Rokitansky, the first true descriptive pathologist, was celebrated in February 2004. Rokitansky gathered many and important specimens that are now displayed in the Federal Museum of Pathological Anatomy in Vienna. On examining Rokitansky's collection we found a myxoma of the pulmonary valve of a 70-year-old woman who died in 1833. Cardiac myxomas are rare but are the most frequent primary heart tumors, appearing even less frequently on cardiac valves. Modern histology has confirmed Rokitansky's diagnosis on gross pathology. The good condition of this 171-year-old specimen was surprising. Thus, Rokitansky described the myxoma 75 years before Ribbert's first description of a myxoma in this rare localization.

The bicentenary of Carl Rokitansky's birth prompted us to evaluate his less well-known work related to osteopathology. Of various articles containing humoropathological interpretations of osseous diseases, one work should be highlighted. It is, to the best of our knowledge, the first description of a spondylocostal dysplasia, re-discovered many years later, precisely described and accompanied by an excellent illustration.

On February 19th 2004 we celebrated the 200th anniversary of Carl Rokitansky's birth. Together with Morgagni and Virchow, Rokitansky paved the way for the development of modern pathology. In addition, he was the co-founder of the so-called Second Vienna Medical School. Rokitansky represents a personality on the threshold of the change in medicine from a phenomenological-dominated philosophy to an evidence-based science. This jubilee essay aims at outlining this development particularly with regard to the Vienna Medical School before and after Rokitansky.