Dyakonov, Pyotr Ivanovich

Dyakonov, Pyotr Ivanovich (1855–1908), professor of Moscow University. Born in the city of Orel. Shortly before graduating from the St. Petersburg Medico-Surgical Academy, he was arrested and exiled for a political case, and at the beginning of the Turkish War (1877–78) he was sent to the front as a private (where he later performed medical assistant duties); after the war ended, he was arrested a second time during the final exams permitted to him at the Medico-Surgical Academy (graduated in 1879 with the title of physician). In view of the prohibition to reside in the capital, Dyakonov began working that same year as a Zemstvo physician in the Bolkhov district of Orel province. From 1880 to 1883, Dyakonov was a physician at the provincial Zemstvo hospital in Orel. In 1884, Dyakonov moved to Moscow to the position of city sanitary physician, working simultaneously at an eye hospital. In 1887, Dyakonov was an assistant prosector at the Institute

of Topographic Anatomy and Operative Surgery of Moscow University. In 1888, he defended his dissertation "Statistics of Blindness and Some Data on the Etiology of Blindness Among the Russian Population" (dissertation, St. Petersburg, 1898) and received the title of privat-docent of Moscow University. In 1890, Dyakonov was a prosector, and in 1893, a professor of Topographic Anatomy and Operative Surgery at Moscow University. From 1901, Dyakonov was a professor of the Hospital Surgical Clinic of Moscow University. Immense erudition, energy, persistence, capacity for work, love of labor, the ability to interest and involve others in work, and exceptional organizational skills were the distinguishing features of Dyakonov. Dyakonov left about 60 works on various branches of surgery. Among them, the most important are: "On the Significance of Intravenous Infusion of an Alkaline Solution of Table Salt in Chloroform Collapse" (Medical Review, 1887, No. 24); "Materials for Clarifying the Clinical Picture of Chloroform Death" (Moscow, 1890); "Fundamentals of the Antiparasitic Method of Wound Treatment" (Moscow, 1900); "On the Doctrine of Gallstone Disease" (Surgery, Vol. XIII, January, No. 73, 1903). Together with Rein, Lysenkov, and Napalkov, Dyakonov published a course on operative surgery and topographic anatomy (Dyakonov P., Rein F., Lysenkov N., and Napalkov N., Lectures on Topographic Anatomy and Operative Surgery, Vol. I-II, Moscow, 1908). From the Institute of Topographic Anatomy and the Hospital Surgical Clinic, during the time he was in charge of them, over 350 scientific works by his students were produced under his guidance; some of the latter now occupy chairs at universities. From 1891 to 1897, together with N. V. Sklifosovsky, Dyakonov edited and published the journal "Surgical Chronicle." In 1897, he founded, edited, and published until his death the monthly journal "Surgery." From 1903, he published "Works of the Hospital Surgical Clinic of Professor P. I. Dyakonov" (by the end of 1908, 15 volumes had been published). Together with Levshin, Razumovsky, and Subbotin, he edited the publication "Russian Surgery." Dyakonov was an active member of the Surgical Society in Moscow, an honorary and full member of several Russian and foreign scientific societies, one of the organizers of the congresses of Russian surgeons, and chairman of the organizing committee of the I Congress in 1901.