James Wylie

WYLIE, Yakov Vasilyevich (James Wylie) (1768–1854), a prominent figure in the field of military sanitation; a native of Scotland. Wylie received his medical education at the University of Edinburgh and arrived in Russia among other foreign physicians recruited abroad by special invitation to serve in Russia. In 1790, he passed the examination in St. Petersburg to acquire an academic degree in Russia and the right to practice, after which he entered service as a regimental physician in the Yelets Infantry Regiment. Being a highly educated and energetic physician, he quickly gained fame as a surgeon. In 1795, he left military service and rapidly took up the position of one of the most popular physicians in St. Petersburg, soon receiving the title of court surgeon (1799). In 1806, he was appointed chief medical inspector of the army, and in 1808, president of the Medical-Surgical Academy. From this time begins Wylie's exceptional and energetic administrative activity, directed toward organizing the medical branch in the country, improving the education received by physicians, and increasing their number and quality. Wylie participated in almost all military campaigns of that time and thoroughly studied the conditions of a physician's work in the army. Wylie's appointment to the post of medical inspector of the army gave him the opportunity to do much to establish its military-medical branch, which was then in a very wretched state. Wylie himself published several manuals for military physicians and created the General Journal of Medical Science, and then in 1823, the Military-Medical Journal. A colossal merit of Wylie was his work on the reorganization of military hospitals, which were called "temporary military hospitals" and played a major role during the war of 1812, when their number reached 70. Wylie's personality, his knowledge, mind, and devotion to military-sanitary affairs contributed greatly to strengthening the prestige of military physicians and improving their working conditions. Wylie left a particularly large trace in the history of the Medical-Surgical Academy, whose fortunes he closely followed until his death. Upon his report, the Academy's charter was revised in the spirit of raising the level of both its teaching staff and students. According to Wylie's project, the Academy conference for the first time received the right of autonomy, the right to independently elect its members. Wylie proposed sending the most capable alumni of the Academy abroad for scientific improvement. He established a special scholarship in his name and left almost his entire vast fortune to the Academy for the establishment of a clinical hospital, which was subsequently named the "Baronet Wylie Clinic." Wylie's activity found general recognition among physicians, who elected him an honorary member of a number of Russian and foreign scientific societies and organizations. Upon Wylie's retirement from service at the Medical-Surgical Academy, its conference also elected him an honorary member, and in 1859 a monument was erected to Wylie in front of the main facade of the academic building. — Wylie's works: On Yellow American Fever, St. Petersburg, 1805; Manual Serving as a Guide for Physicians Present at the Recruitment of Recruits, St. Petersburg, 1806 and 1810; Brief Manual on the Most Important Surgical Operations, St. Petersburg, 1806; Practical Remarks on the Plague, St. Petersburg, 1829; Offizielle Berichte über die in den Militärhospitalern gegen die Cholera morbus angewandten Heilmethoden, S.-Petersburg, 1831. Biographical sources: History of the Imperial Military-Medical Academy for a Hundred Years (St. Petersburg, 1898, pp. 247–255).