Erast Gavrilovich Salishchev

SALISHCHEV, Erast Gavrilovich (1851–1901), a famous surgeon. Upon graduating from the gymnasium, he entered the medical faculty of Kazan University. From the 3rd year, Salishchev left along with a group of students in protest against the persecution of Professor P. F. Lesgaft by the right-wing professoriate. Along with Lesgaft's transfer, Salishchev transferred to the Military Medical Academy. Upon graduating from the Academy in 1875, Salishchev was offered a foreign assignment and a position at the Academy, but he declined this offer because, being under the influence of the then-emerging desire of the youth to "go to the people," he decided to dedicate his knowledge to the people and went to work in the zemstvo, where he worked for five years until 1880. During the Russo-Turkish War, he was in military service for 8¹/₂ months. In 1881, he returned to the Academy, passed his examinations for Doctor of Medicine, and remained to work in the surgical clinic of Professor Kolomnin. Simultaneously, Salishchev worked on anatomy under Professor Lesgaft. In 1885, Salishchev defended his dissertation on the topic "Topographical Sketch of the Male Perineum" (St. Petersburg, 1885), which was awarded a prize and has not lost its value to this day. Until 1890, Salishchev was a prosector at the Department of Operative Surgery and Topographical Anatomy of the Military Medical Academy under Professor Nasilov. In 1890, he was appointed professor at Tomsk University for the same department. In 1892, he received charge of the Hospital Surgical Clinic, where he worked until the end of his life. Salishchev created an outstanding clinic and a number of students who, subsequently evaluating Salishchev's activity, called him the "father of Siberian surgery." In addition to the clinic, Salishchev operated in the central transit prison, where, at his insistence, the prison administration was forced to agree to the removal of shackles from prisoners during the period of surgical treatment. In 1896, Salishchev spent a year on a foreign assignment, visiting the clinics of Bergmann, Kocher, Mikulicz, Czerny, and others. Working in the Society of Naturalists and Physicians, Salishchev contributed to broad educational work of a preventive nature. Having wounded a finger on his hand during an operation, Salishchev died of blood poisoning. Salishchev is the author of about 20 scientific printed works, among which there are a number that have retained their value to the present time. The work on the disarticulation of the entire lower limb with its innominate bone (1899) "brought Salishchev fame and a world name." The Salishchev operation method is still one of the best among many proposed. Main works: "On Lithotomies" (Khirurgicheskiy Vestnik, 1891); "Disarticulation of the entire upper limb with scapula and clavicle" (Vrach, 1899); "Exarticulatio interileo-abdominalis" (Arch. f. kl. Chir., Vol. LX; the same in Russian - Vrach, 1899); "Disarticulation of the entire lower limb with its innominate bone"; "Surgical Anatomy and Ligation of the External Carotid Artery in loco electionis" (Vrach, 1886).