Aleksandr Kisel

KISEL, Aleksandr Andreyevich (born 1859), a well-known pediatrician, professor at the Second Moscow State University. He graduated from Kyiv University in 1883 and worked in the clinic of Professor Bystrov. In 1887, Kisel defended his dissertation: «On the question of patho-anatomical changes in the bones of growing animals under the influence of minimal doses of phosphorus» (diss., St. Petersburg, 1887). From 1892, Kisel was a privat-docent at Moscow University. From 1910, he was a lecturer at the Moscow Higher Women's Courses, where he organized a children's clinic. With the organization of the Second Moscow State University, Kisel remained there as a professor and director of the children's clinic. Kisel authored over 250 printed works. Many of these works are devoted to malaria, cerebrospinal meningitis, blood diseases, rheumatic infection, congenital heart defects, and tuberculosis. Kisel argued for the ubiquitous spread of tuberculosis among children and its intrauterine transmission. Currently, Kisel serves as chairman of the Moscow Commission for conducting anti-tuberculosis BCG vaccinations in newborn children. Kisel critically reviewed many fundamental issues in pediatrics, paying special attention to social diseases. Kisel was a staunch supporter of the preventive direction in medicine, arguing for the necessity of studying the «natural course of diseases». Asserting that recovery is the result of self-healing, he insisted on the wide application of physical methods of treatment (light, air). In the field of public activity, Kisel was an active member of the Pirogov Society, chairman of the Society of Children's Doctors in Moscow (since 1907), chairman of the commission for the study of tuberculosis in children, scientific supervisor of the department for the abnormal child at the Moscow Institute for the Protection of Children's and Adolescents' Health; a participant in a number of malaria congresses (1916–29), editor and co-editor of the journals «Pediatrics», «Vrachebnoye Delo», «Russkaya Klinika», and the Great Medical Encyclopedia. He edited collections on immunobiology, the clinical aspects, and prevention of tuberculosis in children. Kisel was a popular lecturer and teacher, widely applying new methods of teaching in medicine. Kisel's most important works, besides the aforementioned dissertation, include: «On the question of forced feeding of typhoid fever patients» (without city, without year); «On infectious jaundice in children» (Moscow, 1898); «On the treatment of malaria in children with quinine» (Moscow, 1922).