FOCHT ALEXANDER

FOCHT ALEXANDER Bogdanovich (1848-1930), known pathologist. After graduating from Moscow University in 1871, he initially worked in pathological anatomy, first as an assistant, and from 1874 as a regular docent. After returning from a foreign trip during which he worked mainly with Cohnheim, in 1881 he took the chair of general pathology at Moscow University and became famous as a brilliant lecturer-orator. In 1887 he organized a special Institute of General Pathology at the new clinical institutions of Moscow University. Resigning from the university in 1911 in protest against the university policy of Minister Zhasso, he continued his scientific, teaching, and organizational activities at the Higher Women's Courses (from 1909), where he created the Institute of Experimental Pathology at the 2nd City Hospital. After the revolution, however, he returned to I Moscow University, where for some time he served as dean of the medical faculty (1918-1920), while at the same time being a professor at II Moscow University and teaching a course on organopathology at the newly organized Higher Medical School. He was a member of many medical societies. In 1926 he was elected an honorary member of the Union of All-Russian Therapeutic Congresses, and the Council of People's Commissars awarded him the title of Honored Scientist of the Republic. Of Focht's scientific works, the most important are: experimental studies on inflammation of the pericardium (1899), on functional and anatomical changes in the heart during embolism of the coronary arteries (1911), on disorders of blood circulation and heart function during embolism of the pulmonary artery (together with Professor Lindeman, 1903), two volumes of lectures: on pathology of the heart (1910 and 1927) and on edema and dropsy (1919). From the institute he directed at I Moscow University, a series of works-monographs emerged, collected in 4 volumes of the institute's works, and from his staff, a whole series occupied chairs.