Grigory Vitalievich Khlopin

KHLOPIN Grigory Vitalievich (1863–1929), major Soviet hygienist, Honored Scientist. In 1886, upon graduating from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Saint Petersburg University with the degree of Candidate of Natural Sciences, he worked in the physiological laboratory of I. M. Sechenov.

In the same year, for political activities, he was exiled to Cherdyn and later transferred to Perm, where he worked as a laboratory technician and subsequently as director of the sanitary laboratory of the provincial zemstvo.

In 1890, he entered the Medical Faculty of Moscow University, where he worked at the Hygienic Institute under F. F. Erisman. Upon graduating from the medical faculty (1893), he was retained at the university to prepare for a professorship. In 1896, he was appointed to the Chair of Hygiene at Yuryev (Dorpat) University, in 1903 at Novorossiysk (Odessa) University, and in 1904 he transferred to Saint Petersburg, taking the Chair of Hygiene at the Women's Medical Institute (now the State Leningrad Medical Institute).

From 1906 to 1918, he held the Chair of Hygiene at the Institute for Advanced Medical Training, and from 1918 at the Military Medical Academy. As a talented organizer, Khlopin established and developed several departments of hygiene; he also conceived the idea of the Institute of Preventive Medicine, which was established at the Military Medical Academy. In the field of scientific research, Khlopin was one of the most gifted experimentalists. A number of methods proposed by him (methods for determining oxygen in water and air, ozone in air, aniline dyes, the chemical composition of various food products, etc.) became part of both Russian and foreign practice.

However, Khlopin's scientific activity was not limited to laboratory work. He authored numerous works on sewage systems, water supply, housing, the sanitary state of various cities and regions (the Volga region, the Urals), public nutrition, school hygiene, occupational hygiene, and more. As an outstanding scientist, Khlopin formed an extensive school of hygienists, with over 10 of his students holding chairs of hygiene. Khlopin left a vast literary legacy in the form of numerous publications. In total, he published about 140 works, including manuals, textbooks, monographs, and popular publications. Under his editorship, about 20 collections and monographs were published. Khlopin served as a co-editor of the Great Medical Encyclopedia, contributing several articles to it. Khlopin's main published works include: On the Methodology of Determining Oxygen Dissolved in Water (dissertation, Moscow, 1896), Methods of Examining Food Products and Beverages (issues 1–3, Moscow–Petrograd, 1913–16), Chemical Methods of Examining Drinking and Wastewater (Petrograd, 1918), Fundamentals of Hygiene (Moscow, 1921–23), Course of General Hygiene (Moscow, 1930), Military-Sanitary Fundamentals of Gas Protection (Leningrad, 1930), and others.