Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin

Founded 1710. Born as a plague hospital, medicine's historic halls of Virchow and Koch.

Overview

Charite opened in 1710 as a quarantine house for plague victims north of Berlin's walls, becoming a teaching hospital for the army's medical school in 1727. Rudolf Virchow founded cellular pathology here, Robert Koch worked the tuberculosis years in its orbit, and Behring's diphtheria antitoxin came from its stables era. More than half of German Nobel laureates in medicine or physiology have ties to Charite. The merged 2003 structure with Humboldt and Free University faculties made it Europe's largest university hospital by beds. The Langenbeck-Virchow Haus still hosts anatomical society functions.