Pavel Voskresensky

VOSKRESENSKY, Pavel Ivanovich (1868–1925), a prominent physician-hygienist and public nutrition activist. After graduating from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics in Odessa and subsequently the Faculty of Medicine in Moscow, Voskresensky worked for several years in the Far East and China, then as a sanitary physician in Bessarabia and a military physician, and from 1917 specialized as a practitioner in the field of practical hygiene. In 1917, Voskresensky was invited to head the Moscow City Sanitary Station. He reorganized the station into the large "Moscow Sanitary Institute" (see Erisman), with a number of new departments and a large staff. The institute currently performs large-scale and responsible sanitary research work of a current and planned nature, broadly serving the needs of the city of Moscow and the Moscow Health Department. In this institute, Voskresensky equipped the food department with particular care, where he personally conducted a number of works. During the years of devastation and famine, Voskresensky displayed fervent activity, organizing a number of enterprises and initiatives to improve and secure the nutrition of the broad masses of the population of Moscow, participating in a wide variety of governmental and public bodies that managed this matter. With Voskresensky's participation, a number of interesting experiments, applied on a broad scale, were carried out on the use of perishable products; he headed the Experimental Food Station, under which the first experimental bakery was subsequently organized. In the field of clarifying issues regarding food substitutes, which were very common in those years, Voskresensky was one of the best specialists; some brochures on these issues published by the People's Commissariat of Health during the famine years (1921–1922) also belong to his pen. As a public figure, Voskresensky took a most active part in the activities of the Public Nutrition Committee (Narpit) formed in 1923–1924, serving as the scientific secretary of its scientific nutrition council until his death. Voskresensky was the initiator of a major undertaking to develop food product standards and create a "Food Code" in the USSR. Voskresensky also took an active part in all the work of the People's Commissariat of Health in the field of food hygiene, consulting on relevant issues, conducting courses for physicians, etc. Voskresensky's works are scattered across many medical journals.