Alexei Pospelov

POSPELOV, Alexei Ivanovich (1846–1916), a well-known Russian dermatologist. Upon graduating from the medical faculty at Moscow University in 1869, Pospelov served until 1874 as an assistant to Professor Naidenov, a specialist in skin and venereal diseases. From 1874 to 1876, he was a consultant and chief physician at the Moscow Myasnitskaya Hospital, where he opened the Dolgorukov courses for midwives and Sunday courses for students and physicians. Beginning in 1884, having received the title of Privatdozent, Pospelov began lecturing at the same hospital in parallel with Professor Mansurov. In 1887, he was appointed supernumerary professor, and in 1892 (following Mansurov's death), established as a regular professor. Without leaving the hospital, Pospelov began lecturing at the clinic he equipped on Devichye Pole. Pospelov described a number of rare skin diseases: idiopathic progressive atrophy of the skin, erythromelalgia, trophic changes of the skin, perlèche, lymphangioma tuberosum, and others. He provided a regimen for facial skin massage in acne vulgaris, proposed the treatment of skin sarcomas with arsenic and elephantiasis with subcutaneous injections of calomel. Pospelov was one of the first Russian physicians to observe and describe cases of extragenital syphilis transmission, introduced the treatment of syphilis with mercuric chloride injections into the practice of Russian physicians, and pointed out the importance of arsenic in the treatment of malignant syphilis. Pospelov authored a textbook on skin diseases that went through 7 editions. Under his editorship, a translation of Behrend's textbook on skin diseases was published. Pospelov served as editor of the dermatology and syphilidology section in the journal Biblioteka vracha (Moscow, 1894–99). Pospelov founded a museum of moulages, predominantly by Russian craftsmen (Karpovich, Prokhorov, and especially Fiveisky), and the Moscow dermatological clinic became a nursery of teaching aids for other clinics, which received duplicates of these moulages. Pospelov opened a maternity asylum for women with syphilis and established the first outpatient clinic for venereal patients with free distribution of medicines. Pospelov organized the dermatological sections of the 4th and 8th Pirogov Congresses, the first syphilidological congress, and the dermatological section of the 12th International Medical Congress (1897), attended by prominent foreign dermatologists and syphilidologists led by Kaposi, according to whom the clinic headed by Pospelov was the best in Europe.