Martsinovsky, Evgeny Ivanovich

MARTSINOVSKY, Evgeny Ivanovich (born 1874), a prominent malariologist. He graduated from the medical faculty of Moscow University in 1899. From 1901, he was a prosector and bacteriologist at the former Pavlov Hospital (Moscow), and subsequently a resident physician at the same hospital for 25 years. His early scientific work includes studies on the staining of leprosy bacilli and their differentiation from other microbes of the tuberculosis group; he described a new species of acid-fast bacillus from the crypts of the tonsils. In 1904, Martsinovsky, together with S. Bogrov, definitively established the nature of the causative agent of cutaneous leishmaniasis ("Etiology of Oriental Sore," Meditsinskoye Obozreniye, Vol. LXI, 1904). In-depth study of leishmaniasis continued in the Transcaucasus and served as the subject for his dissertation ("Etiology of Oriental Sore," dissertation, Moscow, 1909). In 1910–11, Martsinovsky was a privat-docent at Moscow University, where he gave a course on "Pathogenic protozoa and their role in the pathology of humans and animals." In 1911, as a protest against the regime created by the Minister of Education Kasso, Martsinovsky left the university. From 1911, Martsinovsky was the chairman of the Pirogov Malaria Commission, organizing a series of expeditions (to the Mugan Steppe, the Black Sea coast, and others) to study malaria and implement practical measures to combat it. The organization of the first courses on malaria and the first malaria stations in Russia dates to this time. During the imperialist war, Martsinovsky, while on the Caucasian front, studied tropical diseases, pappataci fever, dengue, Malta fever, and others. From 1921, he organized the first Tropical Institute in the USSR (in Moscow), of which he is the director at the present time. Under the guidance of the institute, a network of anti-malaria institutions was created and a number of expeditions were organized. In 1923, Martsinovsky organized a clinic for infectious diseases at the 2nd Moscow State University and occupied the chair of infectious diseases. Martsinovsky has written many works on parasitology, bacteriology, and infectious diseases: on leishmaniasis, syphilis and other spirochetal infections, piroplasmosis, fungal diseases, typhus and typhoid fever, and, primarily, on malaria, malaria-like diseases, and diseases of hot countries. Martsinovsky is a member of the Moscow Soviet of several convocations, a member of the Scientific Medical Council and many Russian and foreign scientific societies, and an editor of a number of scientific journals ("Tropical Medicine," "Hygiene and Epidemiology," and others).