Levitsky, Vyacheslav Alexandrovich

LEVITSKY, Vyacheslav Alexandrovich (born 1867), a well-known physician and public figure. After graduating from the medical faculty of Moscow University in 1890, he worked as a district physician in the Bogorodsk (1890–1892) and Bronnitsy (1892–1896) districts of Moscow Province. In 1896, he moved to sanitary work in the Moscow provincial zemstvo [Podolsk district (1896–1905), Moscow district (1905–1914)]. In his sanitary activities, Levitsky focused primarily on factory-sanitary supervision, choosing occupational hygiene as his specialty. From 1914 to 1920, Levitsky headed the Moscow Sanitary Bureau. From 1921, he moved to purely scientific work, taking the position of deputy director of the Sanitary-Hygienic Institute of the People's Commissariat of Health, and organized an occupational-hygiene department within it (1921–1925). In 1925, at the suggestion of the People's Commissariat of Labor, the People's Commissariat of Health, and the Supreme Council of the National Economy, Levitsky organized the State Institute for Occupational Safety, of which he served as director until 1927. In 1928, at the suggestion of the People's Commissariat of Health, he organized the Central State Institute of the People's Commissariat of Health for the Study of Occupational Diseases, of which he has been the director since 1928. In the late 1890s, Levitsky became acquainted with V. I. Lenin and his family. In the early 1900s, he collaborated with the newspaper Iskra and took part in its distribution. In 1901, Levitsky conducted a study of the physical condition of the population of the Podolsk district, using primarily data from examinations of conscripts ("Physical Condition of the Population of the Podolsk District"; in the 2nd edition: "Sanitary-Diagnostic Study of the Podolsk District," no city, no year). In this work, Levitsky identified the most vulnerable area (Klenovskaya volost), where the production of felt hats was concentrated. This conclusion posed a new task: a detailed sanitary study of the identified disadvantaged area. Such a study was carried out by Levitsky together with district physician S. M. Mikhailov and the hat-maker worker P. P. Kukovkin and was published in the proceedings of the XVI Congress of Physicians of Moscow Province. This study confirmed the physical degeneration of the population of the hat-making district under the influence of an occupational factor—mass mercury poisoning of workers and their families. This conclusion provided the task for a new work—the search for a method of processing down for felt hats without the use of mercury. To carry out this task, Levitsky was sent by the Moscow zemstvo to France, where he managed to find a mercury-free method, which had been rejected by factory owners, as Levitsky assumed, solely because its application was associated with the payment of a patent fee. This method, tested in Moscow, proved satisfactory in all respects and received practical application. At the present time, the application of the mercury-free method in the Podolsk district has been implemented 100%. The issue of the struggle for the improvement of the hat-making industry in European countries and Russia was covered by Levitsky in two articles: "From the Field of Collisions Between Public Hygiene and Capital" (Obshchestvenny Vrach, 1908, No. 2); "Au sujet de la suppression de l'emploi du mercure dans l'industrie de la couperie de poil" (Revue d'hygiene, v. XXXIV, 1912). Of his other 40 printed works and reports, the most significant are: "Epidemiological Features of Scarlet Fever. Influence of Meteorological Conditions of Seasons on the Course of Epidemic Diseases" (Obshchestvenny Vrach, 1912, No. 4–6) (this work received the Pospolitaki Prize from the Pirogov Society); "Mental Labor and Fatigue" (Obshchestvenny Vrach, 1922, No. 2); "The Problem of Fatigue" (Gigiena Truda, 1926, No. 1, 4, 10–11).