BOTKIN

BOTKIN, Sergei Petrovich (1832-89), famous Russian physician and professor at the Military Medical Academy. His father, a Moscow merchant, was one of the largest tea traders; the numerous Botkin family was closely connected with the scientific and literary world of Moscow; one sister of B. was married to the poet Shenshin (literary pseudonym-Fet); and another-to Professor of Moscow University Pukulin. The greatest influence on the course of B.'s education and development was his older brother-Vasili Petrovich, a friend of Stankevich, Belinsky, Granovsky, Bakunin and others. Soon after completing his university course, B. went to the Crimea for war (in Pirogov's detachment) and for 1½ months served as an ordinatory at the Simferopol military hospital, where he formed a very unfavorable opinion of the state of hospital affairs at that time. In 1855 B. went abroad, where he worked under Virchow (in the physiological-chemical laboratory of Norre-Seyler). At the same time he diligently attended Traube's clinic, which attracted him with his extraordinary powers of observation and the close connection between the laboratory and the clinic. The winter of 1858-59 B. spent in Vienna, where he listened to physiology under Ludwig and clinic under Oppolzer. The winter of 1859-60 B. spent in Paris, where he listened to Claude Bernard, in whose lectures physiology was most closely intertwined with pathology, and also attended clinical lectures by Trousseau, Barthez, Bouchut and others. Here he wrote his doctoral dissertation: "On the absorption of fat in the intestines." In the autumn of 1860 B. returned to Petersburg, defended his dissertation and soon was appointed (5 years after completing his course) adjunct professor of the faculty therapeutic clinic. After Shipyulinsky left, B. took over the management of the clinic and breathed new life into it. In connection with the clinic, B. set up a clinical laboratory both for the exercises of students and for the scientific work of physicians, who soon gathered around him in large numbers. The works coming out of this laboratory soon concentrated in a special periodic publication "Archive of Clinical Internal Medicine," which B. published at his own expense for a long time. 13 volumes of this "Archive" were published. The 1860s were the culmination of B.'s scientific-clinical activity. During this time he gained universal recognition as a professor and as a clinician. In 1867 he began to publish "Course of Clinical Internal Medicine"; this publication did not go beyond the third issue, and the last issue was no longer a systematic coherent exposition, but consisted of several separate articles. Later three issues of B.'s clinical lectures, recorded by his then ordinators, were published. B. was a member of the Medical Council, a deputy of the City Duma, chairman of the hospital commission; this public activity of B. in turn had great significance and constituted no small contribution to the development of Russian medicine. The significance of B. for Russian medicine in general is enormous. It is by no means measured by his personal scientific activity-the number of printed works. His scientific theories and hypotheses (for example, on the infectious origin of catarrhal jaundice) received full confirmation many years later (see Botkin-Weil disease). The greatest influence on B. was exerted by Virchow, Ludwig and Hoppe-Seyler. He received from them a clear understanding of the tasks of pathology, physiology and physiological chemistry, the necessity of building clinical medicine in general and clinical medicine on solid factual foundations of these sciences. "the experience of each individual physician in particular. But the details of the methodology of these sciences did not become his property to such an extent as to give him the opportunity, with their help, to independently develop special questions of the clinic; but the greater was his inductive activity, aimed at awakening the desire for scientific activity in others, i.e., first of all, in his numerous students, who then by their example awakened scientific life in even wider circles of the medical family. In his lectures to students (1862) he says: "The success and lasting significance of practical medicine will be determined by the decrease in the importance of instinct in it and the greater subordination to science or reason." And further in the same lectures: "If practical medicine must be placed among the natural sciences, then it is clear that the methods used in practice for the examination, observation and treatment of the patient must be the methods of the naturalist, who bases his conclusions on the greatest possible number of strictly and scientifically observed facts. Therefore, you will understand that scientific practical medicine, basing its actions on such conclusions, cannot tolerate arbitrariness, sometimes peeping through here and there under the beautiful mantle of art, medical intuition, tact, etc. The patient before you is the subject of your scientific research, enriched by all modern methods; having collected the sum of anatomical, physiological and pathological facts of this given subject, grouping these facts on the basis of your theoretical knowledge, you make a conclusion that represents no longer the diagnosis of the disease, but the diagnosis of the patient, for, collecting the facts presented in the subject under investigation, by the method of the naturalist, you will obtain not only the pathological phenomena of this or that organ, on the basis of which you will give the name of the disease, but at the same time you will see the state of all other organs, which are in greater or lesser connection with the disease and varying in each subject. This is precisely the individualization of each case, based on tangible scientific data, that constitutes the task of clinical medicine and, at the same time, the most solid foundation for treatment directed not against the disease, but against the suffering of the patient." Having clearly realized the significance of the then emerging sciences-pathological anatomy, physiology and physiological chemistry for the development of scientific clinics, B. formed public medical opinion on this issue. He worked as a "naturalist in medicine," writes Pletnev, "he created Russian scientific medicine"; and further: "He was a physiologist-clinician, a clinician-thinker, and not a pure physiologist or experimental pathologist, conducting work only in the laboratory." He instilled in Russian physicians the idea that a clinician must not only receive training in these basic theoretical disciplines of medicine, but also in all his further activities maintain an inextricable connection with them, not limiting himself to the accumulation of empirical experience. Thanks to his influence and the example of his clinic, both in old and new hospitals, prosectures began to appear, and the performance of autopsies began to become morally obligatory for the hospital physician; hospital laboratories began to appear not as a luxury, but as a necessary part of the hospital; the scientific work of the physician began to be valued. The growing fame and influence of B. naturally attracted to him a multitude of students. From their midst came many professors; in the 1870s and early 1880s, almost all therapeutic departments were filled by B.'s students. Each such department became a new center for the spread of the same idea of the closest unity of the clinic with the laboratory, of practical medicine with theoretical medicine, although, of course, this ideal was realized by various centers to a very different degree. From the same milieu of B.'s students came, in the indicated period, most of the chief physicians of St. Petersburg hospitals, who gradually introduced these same ideas into the conservative world of hospital affairs. It is necessary to note another important circumstance that extended the significance of the Botkin school far beyond the limits of therapy. From B.'s students came not only therapists. He attached great importance to the passage of therapists. school for people who then specialized in dermatology (Polotebnov), laryngology (Simanovsky), otiatry (Prussak), neuropathology (Drozdov, Uspensky), venereology (T. Pavlov), pediatrics (D. Sokolov) and so on. Moreover, B. very willingly supported among his students the desire to specialize in purely theoretical sciences, and no one found it strange to see among his closest colleagues in the clinic physiologists-I. P. Pavlov, Voroshilov, physiological chemist T. Bogomolov, general pathologist S. M. Lukyanov. The high respect for physiology and physiological chemistry, which B. brought from his stay abroad, made him always interested in that science which is the synthesis of both these sciences, namely, pharmacology, and therefore in B.'s clinical laboratory pharmacological works were very often performed, the topics for which he willingly drew from folk medicine, and some of his students went so far into pharmacology that they even occupied the chair of this science (L. Tumas). Until his death, B. was chairman of the Society of Russian Physicians in St. Petersburg, which under him reached a high degree of prosperity.-Main printed works of Botkin: 1) Formation of stagnation in the blood vessels of the frog's mesentery from the action of medium salts ("Mil.-Med.")

1) Quantitative determination of protein and sugar in urine using the Pfentzke-Soleilevsky polarimeter ("Zhurnal", 1858, part 73), 2) Quantitative determination of milk sugar in milk using the Pfentzke-Soleilevsky apparatus ("Moskovskaya Meditsinskaya Gazeta", 1858, No. 13), 3) Quantitative determination of milk sugar in milk using the Pfentzke-Soleilevsky apparatus ("Moskovskaya Meditsinskaya Gazeta", 1858, No. 19), 4) On the absorption of fat in the intestines, dissertation ("Voenno-Meditsinsky Zhurnal", 1860, part 78), 5) On the physiological action of atropine sulfate ("Meditsinsky Vestnik", 1861, No. 29), 6) Uber die Wirkung der Salze auf die circulierenden roten Blutkorperchen [Archiv fur pathologische Anatomie u. fur klinische Medizin, B. XV(V), Heft 1, 2, 1858], 7) Zur Frage von dem Stoffwechsel der Fette im thierischen Organismus [ibid., B. XV (V), Heft 3, 4, 1858], 8) Untersuchungen uber die Diffusion organischer Stoffe (3 articles-ibid., B. XX, Heft 1, 2, 1861), 9) Review of advances in private pathology and therapy in 1861-62 ("Voenno-Meditsinsky Zhurnal", 1863 and 1864), 10) Case of thrombosis of the portal vein ("Meditsinsky Vestnik", 1863, No. 37 and 38), 11) Preliminary report on the epidemic of relapsing fever in St. Petersburg ("Meditsinsky Vestnik" 1864, No. 46), 12) On the etiology of relapsing fever in St. Petersburg ("Meditsinsky Vestnik", 1865, No. 1), 13) Aus St. Petersburg (Wiener Wochenblatt, 1865, No. 22), 14) Course of clinical internal medicine (three volumes, last edition-1912), 15) Preliminary report on the current cholera epidemic ("Epidemichesky Listok", 1871, No. 3, supplement), 16) Auscultatory phenomena in narrowing of the left venous orifice (St. Petersburger medizinische Wochenschrift, 1880, No. 9), 17) Clinical lectures (in three volumes), 18) General foundations of clinical medicine (Inaugural speech, 1887). Under the editorship of B. were published: "Arkiv kliniki vnutrennikh boleniy", 13 volumes, 1869-89 and "Yezhedelnaya Klinich. Gazeta", 1881-89. k. d. g. e. t. sh.

BOTKIN, Sergey Sergeyevich (1859-1910), son of the famous clinician S. P. Botkin. Graduated from the natural sciences faculty of St. Petersburg University and the Military Medical Academy (in 1886). Left at the academy for further improvement, B. devoted himself to internal diseases and bacteriology, which he studied abroad under R. Koch in 1900. In 1896, he won by competition the newly founded department of infectious diseases with bacteriology at the Medical Academy, which he held until 1899; then he moved to the academy's therapeutic clinic (the department that his father had once held). Died suddenly in 1910. Botkin was the first professor of bacteriology and infectious diseases in Russia and founder of the school of bacteriologists-infectiologists, whom his department, founded by him, produced for 25 years after him, until in 1924 it was replaced by two separate departments-microbiology and clinic of infectious diseases. As head of the department, B. was distinguished by extraordinary charm, which attracted numerous students to him. B. combined in himself the qualities of an excellent bacteriologist and an educated infectious disease specialist-therapist. In the literature, B. is known as the author of the bacillus of lactic fermentation discovered by him (Bac. Botkini) and an apparatus for cultivating anaerobes (see Botkin's apparatus). Also known are his works on the influence of tuberculins on the blood. The first work in this direction and his doctoral dissertation "The influence of rubidium and cesium salts on the heart and circulation" (1888) was done under the guidance of I. P. Pavlov. Being a man of extensive and comprehensive education, B., in addition, was one of the foremost connoisseurs of painting and a collector of works of art.