Alexander Nikolayevich Rakhmanov

Alexander Nikolayevich Rakhmanov (1861–1926), a well-known obstetrician and a major public figure in the field of maternal and infant welfare. After graduating from Moscow University (1885), he first worked in the clinic of Slaviansky, then completed his residency (1886–1889) at the Moscow Obstetric Clinic (under Makeyev).

His time at the Moscow school had a great influence on Rakhmanov, especially because in those years, in connection with the development of a project for a new clinic, questions were being raised about the organization of obstetric care, more radical measures for combating puerperal fever, and the reform of obstetric teaching. Upon completing his residency, Rakhmanov entered municipal service (1889), and from this time his independent medical and public activity began. In the very near future, he organized the first free maternity shelter with a gynecological department; subsequently, with his direct participation, a number of other maternity shelters were opened, and finally, in 1906, the model institution created according to his design began to function—the Abrikosova Maternity Hospital (now the Krupskaya Maternity Hospital), of which he was the head and director from the moment of its founding until 1925.

Along with this, he took a very active part in a whole series of commissions on the organization of obstetric care and the improvement and expansion of obstetric assistance; he founded the first society for the protection of motherhood and contributed much to the opening of the first shelter for mothers (1909). The activity of Rakhmanov developed especially after the October Revolution, when the idea of maternal and infant welfare gained wide scope and began to be implemented on a state scale. He devoted much attention to the reorganization of the Foundling Home and the creation of the Institute of Obstetrics (formerly the Moscow Obstetric Institution), which was subsequently transformed into the women's department and clinic of the Scientific Institute for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy of the People's Commissariat of Health. Rakhmanov was an active participant in a whole series of commissions under the People's Commissariat of Health, delivered keynote reports at All-Union congresses on maternal and infant welfare, and initiated the organization of the Central Commission for the Study of Contraceptives (being its first chairman). Rakhmanov left 22 scientific works, among which his works on obstetric care, consultations, cesarean section, electrargol, and others deserve attention.