Medical Dictionary

Virchow-Robin space

noun Vir·chow-Ro·bin space \ ˈfir-ˌḵō-rō-ˈbaⁿ- \

medical Definition of Virchow-Robin space

: any of the spaces that surround blood vessels as they enter the brain and that communicate with the subarachnoid space

Biographical Note for virchow-robin space

Virchow, Rudolf Ludwig Karl (1821–1902), German pathologist, anthropologist, and statesman. Virchow was the leading German physician of the 19th century. He sought to make medicine the paramount science. His long influential career coincided with the effective adoption by the medical world of the scientific method.

Robin \rō-baⁿ\, Charles–Philippe (1821–1885), French anatomist and histologist. Robin held professorships at the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, first in natural history and later in histology. In 1864 he founded a journal of comparative anatomy, and in 1873 he also assumed directorship of a marine zoology laboratory. In 1868 he described small spaces in the external coat of arteries communicating with the lymphatic system. In 1872 Virchow described similar spaces in the vessels of the brain.