Nikolay Ivanovich Pirogov

Nikolay Ivanovich Pirogov

Nikolay Ivanovich Pirogov (November 13 (N. S. November 25), 1810–November 23 (N. S. December 5), 1881) was a prominent Russian and Ukrainian scientist, doctor, pedagogue, public figure, and corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1847). He is considered to be the founder of field surgery, and was one of the first surgeons in Europe to use ether as an anesthetic. He was the first surgeon to use anaesthesia in a field operation (1847), invented various kinds of surgical operations, and developed his own technique of using plaster casts to treat fractured bones. His name is one of the most widely recognized in Russian medical history, and he is considered a Russian national hero.

Pirogov was born in Moscow. He learned to read early, and learned several languages as a young child. His father died in 1824, leaving his family destitute. Pirogov originally intended to become a civil servant, but the family doctor, Efrem Mukhin, who was a professor of anatomy and physiology at Moscow State University, persuaded the authorities to accept him as a student aged only 14.

Despite limited experience at medical school, Pirogov decided to specialize as a surgeon when he completed his studies in 1828. He completed further studies at Dorpat (now Tartu), receiving a doctorate in 1832 on the ligation of the ventral aorta. He traveled in Germany, visiting the University of Berlin and University of Göttingen, and became a professor at the German University of Dorpat in 1836, aged only 25. He did important work on on arteries and fascies. He moved to take up an appointment as professor of surgery at the academy of military medicine in Saint Petersburg in 1840. He also undertook three years of military service in this period. He first used ether as an anaesthetic in 1847, and investigated cholera from 1848. He compiled his famous anatomical atlas, Topographical anatomy of the human body. He won the Demidov Prize in 1844, 1851, and 1860.

He worked as an army surgeon in the Crimean War, arriving in Simferopol on December 11, 1854. From his works in the Crimea, he is considered to be the father of field surgery. He followed work by Louis Seutin in introducing plaster casts for setting broken bones, and developed a new osteoplastic method for amputation of the foot, known as the "Pirogov amputation". He was also the first to use anethesis in the field, particularly during the siege of Sevastopol, and he introduced a system of triage into five categories. He encouraged female volunteers as an organised corps of nurses, the Khrestovozvizhenska community of nurses established by Grand Duchess Yelena Pavlovna, echoing the efforts made by Florence Nightingale for the British.

He returned to Saint Petersburg after the end of the war in 1856, but withdrew from the academy. He wrote an influential paper on the problems of pedagogy, arguing for the education of the poor, non-Russians, and women. He also argued against early specialisation, and for the development of secondary schools. He returned to the Crimea as a superintendent of schools. He moved to Kiev in 1858 after disagreements with the governor general in Odessa. In 1861, he retired to his estate in Vishnya in central Ukraine. He treated the local peasants there, established a clinic, and learned the Ukrainian language as a show of respect. The composer Tchaikowskyj was one of his visitors there. The Pirogov Museum now exists outside the city of Vinnytsa, Ukraine at his former estate and clinic. His portrait by Repin is in this museum.

In 1862, he took charge of a delegation of Russian students that was sent overseas to train as teachers. He treated Giuseppe Garibaldi for an injury to his foot sustained at Aspromonte on 28 August. Pirogov returned to Russia in 1866, leaving his estate only rarely. He visited the battlefields and field hospitals of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, as a representative of the Russian Red Cross, and was again a field surgeon in the Russo-Turkish War in 1877.

He last appeared in public on 24 May 1881, and died later that year at Vishnya in Ukraine. The Pirogov Hospital in Sofia and asteroid 2506 Pirogov are named in his honor. Kozintsev's biographical film of his life, Pirogov, was released in 1947, with a score by Shostakovich. His son, Nikolay Nikolayevich Pirogov, was a Russian physicist

THE OUTSTANDING RUSSIAN GENETICIST NIKOLAI VAVILOV

The life of Nikolai Vavilov was great and tragic all at the same time. His name now graces streets in Moscow and St. Petersburg, a number of research institutes, a glacier in the Pamir Mountains, another one — on the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago, and even a crater on the Moon. The overwhelming energy of Nikolai Vavilov lives on in his present-day followers.

Nikolai Vavilov was born on November 25, 1887 into the family of a reasonably wealthy businessman. He did not follow in his father’s footsteps, however, and instead, opted for a career in natural sciences. Nikolai worked hard, and really loved what he was doing. “Life is short, there is no time to lose,” he used to say. Nikolai Vavilov never did and, although he died when he was only 55 years old, he left behind a whopping 350 treatises on genetics, biology, geography and selection. Many of his works have since gone down in the history of science. Nikolai Vavilov was an avid traveler and during his many trips across the world he put together a unique collection of plants and seeds. Back home he established a number of research institutes. Nikolai Vavilov was one of the few Russian scholars who braved the rigors of the 1917 October revolution and the Civil War that followed, and stayed on to work in Russia. He tried hard to persuade his hardship-stricken friends and colleagues packing up to leave to stay on and work for the benefit of Russia…

During the Twenties and Thirties Nikolai Vavilov made a series of brilliant discoveries in genetics and plant selection which made his name famous all over the world. His work gave a powerful impetus to Russia’s farming sector, especially in the north, helping resolve the food problem. Nikolai Vavilov was also a great organizer of science and did much to establish the Agricultural Academy and a number of research institutes.

Vavilov was thinking well ahead of his time. Small wonder people unable to comprehend his ideas, criticized and questioned the efforts he made in genetics and plant selection. Those who promised gargantuan harvests without any scientific substantiation, sneered at Vavilov’s encyclopaedic knowledge, workaholic attitude and non-proletarian lineage. These ill-wishers launched a smear campaign against the scientist which severely hampered his work.

Officially elected to preside over the 7th International Congress of Geneticists held in Edinburgh in 1939, Nikolai Vavilov was not allowed to attend the conference… The organizers asked Professor Cru to substitute for the missing Russian scholar. Professor came out on stage and when they were about to put on him the presidential mantle, he said: “You invited me to perform a role which would be best played out by Professor Vavilov. This mantle won’t fit me right. Remember, it was made for Professor Vavilov, who is a way bigger a man than I am…”

Nikolai Vavilov’s worldwide fame was something his enemies just couldn’t ignore. And still, they decided to destroy him, which in Stalin’s times was quiet easy. All you had to do was to report someone to the authorities and he would most certainly wind up in jail.

Vavilov’s biggest enemy was Trofim Lysenko, a man whom Encyclopaedia Britannica later described as the 20th century’s best-known pseudo-scientist. This overly ambitious self-taught experimenter insisted that genetics and selection were not at all needed to grow bigger crops. His followers unleashed a noisy campaign of defamation against Nikolai Vavilov adding heavy political undertones to what was a purely scientific dispute. Vavilov was accused of undermining the socialist reforms an agriculture and, before long, was arrested. He denied all the charges brought against him, but the Stalin dreaded secret police was keen to eliminate the outstanding pletely emaciated by the inhuman conditions of his incarceration, Nikolai Vavilov died in January of 1943…

Nikolai Vavilov’s contribution to science is commeasurable with that done by Ernest Rutherford and Ivan Pavlov. The civic courage shown by the outstanding scientist inspired many generations of scientists who followed his lead. His words “They can burn us alive, but we’ll never renounce what we believe in” have become an anthem of scientists everywhere…

VARVARA KASHEVAROVA – THE FIRST RUSSIAN WOMAN DOCTOR OF MEDICINE

Up until the 20th century women in Russia had no access to higher education. Still, the more enterprising ladies defied parental bands and went to study abroad, for example in Switzerland, where university education was already available for women. These were mainly girls from well-to-do families. Some, however, did manage to receive education in Russia, among them – Varvara Kashevarova-Rudneva, the first Russian woman to be certified as a doctor and get a degree in medicine.

This woman lived a wonderful life and sometimes it seems that she was guided by some supernatural force.

Varvara’s parents died when she was a young girl, so she spent years living in some other people’s family. She was eager to learn, but the idea didn’t sit well with her foster parents. At the age of twelve, Varvara decided to run away to St. Petersburg. On the way there she was robbed, fell ill with typhoid fever and was taken to hospital. Weeks later she was released only to find out that she had nowhere to go and nothing to wear. The doctors bought her clothes, gave her some money and a recommendation letter to a retired skipper who lived in St. Petersburg. The girl was allowed to live with the captain’s family where, helping the man’s wife about the house, she simultaneously was taking lessons from their son who was a high school student. Varvara didn’t stay long with the skipper’s family and was later adopted by a childless military topographer who thought that education was something alien to girls and all they needed was a good marriage. At the age of fourteen Varvara married a rich merchant whose surname was Kashevarov, and it was under this name that she eventually went down in the history of Russian medicine. Varvara told her future husband that she would marry him only if he allowed her to continue her education… He said yes, but a month later demanded that she gave up her studies. Egged on by his parents, he began to mistreat his young wife. Frustrated, Varvara left home and decided to enroll at St. Petersburg Institute of Obstetrics. The girl’s hard work and lust for knowledge was not lost on her teachers. Graduating as a certified midwife, Varvara was allowed to practice her skills, but her biggest dream, however, was to get a higher medical education.

One day she made a happy acquaintance with people who helped the young Varvara Kashevarova get admitted as an occasional student at the prestigious St. Petersburg Medical Academy.

Five years later Varvara graduated from the Medical Academy com laude and was allowed to defend a doctorate in obstetrics and gynecology. The defence took place on May 28, 1876 at the Academy’s conference hall that was jam packed with academicians and students. It all ended with a crowd of admiring friends taking a triumphant Varvara up in their arms and carrying her all around the place with everyone applauding like mad for Russia’s first woman-doctor of medicine.

It seemed that after such a resounding success all roads were open for Varvara to pursue a research and teaching career, but it was easier said than done. Back in those days such a career was still closed for women. The only opportunity left to her was general practice and articles she occasionally contributed to medical journals. To make things worse, her new husband and a good friend professor Mikhail Rudnev died leaving Varvara all alone. Unbent by the tragedy, she worked hard to eventually become very popular among her female patients.

The fact that a woman of modest beginnings had become a doctor of medicine didn’t sit well with those who hated to see women get any education at all. A number of magazines published slanderous stories with an eye to discrediting the young doctor. Varvara Kashevarova successfully sued some of those publications only to see the vicious campaign of demonstration become increasingly shrill. Sickened by all that cold-blooded hysteria, Varvara Kashevarova left St. Petersburg and settled down in central Russia where she bought a small estate and devoted herself fully to treating the local women. During her self-imposed exile, she wrote a number of treatises and books.

The years of hard work and painful turnarounds finally had their toll and, shortly after celebrating her 57th birthday, Varvara Kashevarova, the first Russian woman-doctor of medicine died of heart failure…

Biography

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was born on September 14, 1849 at Ryazan, where his father, Peter Dmitrievich Pavlov, was a village priest. He was educated first at the church school in Ryazan and then at the theological seminary there.

Inspired by the progressive ideas which D. I. Pisarev, the most eminent of the Russian literary critics of the 1860's and I. M. Sechenov, the father of Russian physiology, were spreading, Pavlov abandoned his religious career and decided to devote his life to science. In 1870 he enrolled in the physics and mathematics faculty to take the course in natural science.

Pavlov became passionately absorbed with physiology, which in fact was to remain of such fundamental importance to him throughout his life. It was during this first course that he produced, in collaboration with another student, Afanasyev, his first learned treatise, a work on the physiology of the pancreatic nerves. This work was widely acclaimed and he was awarded a gold medal for it.

In 1875 Pavlov completed his course with an outstanding record and received the degree of Candidate of Natural Sciences. However, impelled by his overwhelming interest in physiology, he decided to continue his studies and proceeded to the Academy of Medical Surgery to take the third course there. He completed this in 1879 and was again awarded a gold medal. After a competitive examination, Pavlov won a fellowship at the Academy, and this together with his position as Director of the Physiological Laboratory at the clinic of the famous Russian clinician, S. P. Botkin, enabled him to continue his research work. In 1883 he presented his doctor's thesis on the subject of «The centrifugal nerves of the heart». In this work he developed his idea of nervism, using as example the intensifying nerve of the heart which he had discovered, and furthermore laid down the basic principles on the trophic function of the nervous system. In this as well as in other works, resulting mainly from his research in the laboratory at the Botkin clinic, Pavlov showed that there existed a basic pattern in the reflex regulation of the activity of the circulatory organs.

In 1890 Pavlov was invited to organize and direct the Department of Physiology at the Institute of Experimental Medicine. Under his direction, which continued over a period of 45 years to the end of his life, this Institute became one of the most important centres of physiological research.

In 1890 Pavlov was appointed Professor of Pharmacology at the Military Medical Academy and five years later he was appointed to the then vacant Chair of Physiology, which he held till 1925.

It was at the Institute of Experimental Medicine in the years that Pavlov did the bulk of his research on the physiology of digestion. It was here that he developed the surgical method of the «chronic» experiment with extensive use of fistulas, which enabled the functions of various organs to be observed continuously under relatively normal conditions. This discovery opened a new era in the development of physiology, for until then the principal method used had been that of «acute» vivisection, and the function of an organism had only been arrived at by a process of analysis. This meant that research into the functioning of any organ necessitated disruption of the normal interrelation between the organ and its environment. Such a method was inadequate as a means of determining how the functions of an organ were regulated or of discovering the laws governing the organism as a whole under normal conditions - problems which had hampered the development of all medical science. With his method of research, Pavlov opened the way for new advances in theoretical and practical medicine. With extreme clarity he showed that the nervous system played the dominant part in regulating the digestive process, and this discovery is in fact the basis of modern physiology of digestion. Pavlov made known the results of his research in this field, which is of great importance in practical medicine, in lectures which he delivered in 1895 and published under the title Lektsii o rabote glavnykh pishchevaritelnyteh zhelez (Lectures on the function of the principal digestive glands) (1897).

Pavlov's research into the physiology of digestion led him logically to create a science of conditioned reflexes. In his study of the reflex regulation of the activity of the digestive glands, Pavlov paid special attention to the phenomenon of «psychic secretion», which is caused by food stimuli at a distance from the employing the method - developed by his colleague D. D. Glinskii in 1895 - of establishing fistulas in the ducts of the salivary glands, Pavlov was able to carry out experiments on the nature of these glands. A series of these experiments caused Pavlov to reject the subjective interpretation of «psychic» salivary secretion and, on the basis of Sechenov's hypothesis that psychic activity was of a reflex nature, to conclude that even here a reflex - though not a permanent but a temporary or conditioned one - was involved.

This discovery of the function of conditioned reflexes made it possible to study all psychic activity objectively, instead of resorting to subjective methods as had hitherto been necessary; it was now possible to investigate by experimental means the most complex interrelations between an organism and its external environment.

In 1903, at the 14th International Medical Congress in Madrid, Pavlov read a paper on «The Experimental Psychology and Psychopathology of Animals». In this paper the definition of conditioned and other reflexes was given and it was shown that a conditioned reflex should be regarded as an elementary psychological phenomenon, which at the same time is a physiological one. It followed from this that the conditioned reflex was a clue to the mechanism of the most highly developed forms of reaction in animals and humans to their environment and it made an objective study of their psychic activity possible.

Subsequently, in a systematic programme of research, Pavlov transformed Sechenov's theoretical attempt to discover the reflex mechanisms of psychic activity into an experimentally proven theory of conditioned reflexes.

As guiding principles of materialistic teaching on the laws governing the activity of living organisms, Pavlov deduced three principles for the theory of reflexes: the principle of determinism, the principle of analysis and synthesis, and the principle of structure.

The development of these principles by Pavlov and his school helped greatly towards the building-up of a scientific theory of medicine and towards the discovery of laws governing the functioning of the organism as a whole.

Experiments carried out by Pavlov and his pupils showed that conditioned reflexes originate in the cerebral cortex, which acts as the «prime distributor and organizer of all activity of the organism» and which is responsible for the very delicate equilibrium of an animal with its environment. In 1905 it was established that any external agent could, by coinciding in time with an ordinary reflex, become the conditioned signal for the formation of a new conditioned reflex. In connection with the discovery of this general postulate Pavlov proceeded to investigate «artificial conditioned reflexes». Research in Pavlov's laboratories over a number of years revealed for the first time the basic laws governing the functioning of the cortex of the great hemispheres. Many physiologists were drawn to the problem of developing Pavlov's basic laws governing the activity of the cerebrum. As a result of all this research there emerged an integrated Pavlovian theory on higher nervous activity.

Even in the early stages of his research Pavlov received world acclaim and recognition. In 1901 he was elected a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in 1904 he was awarded a Nobel Prize, and in 1907 he was elected Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences; in 1912 he was given an honorary doctorate at Cambridge University and in the following years honorary membership of various scientific societies abroad. Finally, upon the recommendation of the Medical Academy of Paris, he was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honour (1915).

After the October Revolution, a special government decree, signed by Lenin on January 24, 1921, noted «the outstanding scientific services of Academician I. P.Pavlov, which are of enormous significance to the working class of the whole world».

The Communist Party and the Soviet Government saw to it that Pavlov and his collaborators were given unlimited scope for scientific research. The Soviet Union became a prominent centre for the study of physiology, and the fact that the 15th International Physiological Congress of August 9-17, 1935, was held in Leningrad and Moscow clearly shows that it was acknowledged as such.

Pavlov directed all his indefatigable energy towards scientific reforms. He devoted much effort to transforming the physiological institutions headed by him into world centres of scientific knowledge, and it is generally acknowledged that he succeeded in this endeavour.

Pavlov nurtured a great school of physiologists, which produced many distinguished pupils. He left the richest scientific legacy - a brilliant group of pupils, who would continue developing the ideas of their master, and a host of followers all over the world.

In 1881, Pavlov married Seraphima (Sara) Vasilievna Karchevskaya, a teacher, the daughter of a doctor in the Black Sea fleet. She first had a miscarriage, said to be due to her having to run after her very fast-walking husband. Subsequently they had a son, Wirchik, who died very suddenly as a child; three sons, Vladimir, Victor and Vsevolod, one of whom was a well-known physicist and professor of physics at Leningrad in 1925, and a daughter, Vera. Dr. Pavlov died in Leningrad on February 27, 1936.