 The Prussian government employed Virchow to study the typhus epidemic in Upper Silesia in 1847–1848.It was from this medical campaign that he developed his ideas on social medicine and politics after seeing the victims and their poverty.Even though he was not particularly successful in combating the epidemic, his 190-paged "Report on the Typhus Epidemic in Upper Silesia" in 1848 became a turning point in politics and public health in Germany.