Resins

RESINS, a name uniting specific products of excretion from many plants that share certain common properties; they form in plants either as normal physiological products or often as pathological products. Not representing either a pure homogeneous chemical product or mixtures of similar compounds, as is the case for example in the class of fats, resins will however probably for a long time retain their significance as a class name in medicine, chemical technology, commodity science, pharmacognosy, etc., due to the similarity of origin and the presence of many characteristic properties that bring individual representatives closer together. Resins are generally more often in the form of amorphous masses, rarely crystalline, sometimes liquid, often possess stickiness, almost all burn with a smoky flame, are almost or completely insoluble in water, do not leave any characteristic stain on paper, in contrast to fats and fatty oils, do not become rancid, are saponifiable and represent mixtures of various colorless or colored, fragrant or odorless substances. They are rich in carbon and hydrogen, poor in oxygen, contain no nitrogen and only very rarely contain small amounts of sulfur. Among the main components of natural resins, one must first point out the fairly often occurring gum in them; such resins are separated into a special group of gum-resins (Gummi-resinae); in medicine are used: gum guaiac (see.), euphorbium, lactucarium (see.) and others. The second essential component of resins are essential oils; if they are mixed with gum-resins, then such resins are called oleo-gum-resins (Gumrniresinae oleosae); in medicine are used: Asa foetida (see.), ammoniac (see.), galbanum (see.), myrrh (see.), benzoin (see. Benzoe) and others; but if gum is absent and there is only a mixture of oil and resin, then they are called oleo-resins (Oleo-resinae); the more liquid of them are called balsams (Balsamum); in medicine are used: copaiba balsam, turpentine, Venice turpentine, elemi, styrax, Canada balsam and others. Further, if there is a pure resin, i.e. a mixture of complex, for the most part still insufficiently studied alcohols, esters, acids, etc., then according to the nature of the acids contained in the resin, they are most conveniently divided into proper resins (odorless) (Resinae), of which in medicine are used: guaiac resin, podophyllin, jalapa resin, rosin, dammar and others, and resins with aromatic acids, possessing a pleasant odor from the presence of fragrant benzoic, cinnamic acids etc. in them (Resinae cum acidis aromaticis); in medicine are used: gum benzoin, or benzoin, Peru balsam, Tolu balsam, styrax and others.- In appearance and properties, resins show great diversity depending on consistency and method of preparation; there are solid, thick and liquid. Color is varied, characteristic for many resins; for example yellow-orange for gum guaiac, white for Siam gum benzoin, black for some kinds of rosin and others; in most cases it is yellow to brownish; some resins are completely colorless. Being mixtures of various components, resins do not always dissolve equally in different solvents and usually only partially. In most cases, resins are relatively easily soluble in alcohol, ether, carbon disulfide, turpentine, benzene, petroleum ether, boiling linseed oil and others; gum-resins are not completely soluble in the listed liquids because gum is insoluble in them, but they are completely soluble in a 60% aqueous solution of chloral hydrate. At present, according to the Tschirch system, the main common components of resins are considered to be the following classes of compounds: a) resinous complex esters (resins) and their decomposition products; b) resinous alcohols (resinols - colorless alcohols that do not give reactions of tannins, and resinotannols - colored alcohols that give reactions of tannins); c) resinous acids (resinolic acids or others); d) indifferent bodies (resenes). Representatives of all the listed classes are comparatively rarely found in resins; more often resins are predominantly ester resins (resinous resins), resinolic acid resins, or resinous resins. If resins have an odor, it is caused either by essential oil or by aldehydes or liquid esters of cinnamic acid. Thanks to recent work, methods for analyzing resins have been developed, based on quite rational principles and in general very similar to the methods for studying fats and fatty oils, i.e. as with fats, their analysis is reduced to determining the so-called fat constants (saponification number, acid number, ester number, iodine number, etc.). In medicine, due to their consistency and stickiness when heated, resins are used for preparing various plasters, and due to their content of essential oils and various other components, they are used as irritant and vesicant (euphorbium, turpentines, tansy), laxative (gum guaiac, podophyllin, jalapa), disinfecting per os (copaiba balsam) or externally (Peru balsam, benzoin), against hysteria and neuroses (see Asa foetida) etc. In addition to the resins mentioned, it should be noted that in technology so-called artificial resins (plastic masses: bakelites, carbolytes etc.) are now often and widely used, obtained in factories by the interaction of phenols with formalin and other aldehydes. In medicine, these resins have no application. The so-called coal tar resin, pitch (see.), is not a resin in the true sense of the word and in medicine has significance as causing skin diseases in workers with it (professional dermatoses). In technology, enormous quantities of resin are used for making varnishes with which wooden, paper, metal and other objects are coated for protection from air, moisture and various gases. l. ginzberg. SNEGIREV Vladimir Fedorovich (1847-1916), a famous gynecologist, honorary professor of Moscow University, one of the founders of Russian scientific and operative gynecology. In 1865, S. was enrolled as a student at the medical faculty, which he graduated from in 1870. Even as a student, S. attracted the attention of the best professors of that time (e.g. Babukhin, Tolsky) with his outstanding abilities. After graduating from the university, S. entered the Yauza Hospital for laborers, and then the Moscow obstetric institution. In 1873, S. defended his dissertation on the topic "To the question of determining and treating postpartum hemorrhage" (M., 1873) and in the same year received a foreign business trip, after returning from which in 1875 his actual scientific and teaching activity began at Moscow University. After a brilliant first lecture on ovariotomy, S. persistently pointed to the need for independent teaching of gynecology, and ultimately Zakharin provided Snegirev with 4 beds for female diseases in the faculty therapeutic clinic for teaching gynecology. Subsequently, Snegirev set himself the goal of creating a special gynecological institute for the advanced training of doctors, which he opened in 1896 in a newly built building on Devichye Pole and directed it until his death.

S. was a highly gifted, broadly educated scientist, an outstanding clinician, a brilliant surgeon, and an exceptionally talented teacher. S. educated hundreds of physicians, created his own Snegirev school, which became known both abroad and in Russia, and greatly contributed to the development and prosperity of operative gynecology and the elevation of Russian gynecological thought to its proper height. Many of S.'s students now hold responsible positions, head departments, and train a new type of gynecologist. S. left 70 diverse scientific works, many of which are known abroad and many of which were the subject of reports at Russian and international foreign gynecological congresses. Among the works left behind, the classical treatise by S. on uterine hemorrhages (which went through several editions and was translated into French) deserves special mention, in which almost all the doctrine of female diseases is covered, and many of its sections have not lost their significance even at the present time and can serve as a model of clinical presentation and a deep, comprehensive illumination of the question. Being a brilliant surgeon, having taken a significant part in the development of a number of issues related to operative gynecology, having proposed his own original methods of operations, S. also paid no less attention to the conservative treatment of female diseases (greatly contributed to the development of radiotherapy and radiology), spoke out against a stereotyped approach to the patient, against an incorrect attitude towards operations; in his famous speech "From What I Have Experienced", at the I Congress of Russian gynecologists and obstetricians in 1903, S. said that all gynecological institutions up to clinics are engaged only in the development of surgical gynecology, not paying attention to other departments. "These are not clinics," said Snegirev, "for the study of female diseases, but surgical dissecting rooms where uteruses, appendages, neoplasms, accumulations, etc., are removed, while the departments of functional disorders of the sexual sphere stand in silence and solitude...". His words acquire special significance in the current period of a deep preventive approach to women and the study in each individual case not only of this or that disease of the sexual sphere, not only of the study of the entire organism, but also of familiarization with the entire environment of the woman, familiarization with her living conditions and forms of labor. Among other works of S., it is necessary to mention a number of works on ovariotomy, on a new method of ligation of a. uterinae, on a modified method of fibrotomy, on the operations he proposed: colpopexia anterior et posterior, laparotomia externa, restitutio vaginae per transplantationem recti, etc. S. first proposed paraffin as a hemostatic agent, described a new form of the disease "endometritis dolorosa", and in a number of works with exceptional clarity and exhaustive completeness, he analyzed the issue of pains in the abdominal and pelvic regions and for the first time gave it a clinical evaluation and anatomical justification. Snegirev was an honorary and full member of many Russian and foreign scientific societies, his name enjoyed exceptional popularity in Russia and Western Europe. Lit.: Gubarev A. P., On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the death of Prof. V. F. Snegirev, Journal of Obstetrics and Women's Diseases, book 2, vol. XXXVIII, 1927; In Memory of Vladimir Fedorovich Snegirev, Moscow, 1917; In Memory of V. F. Snegirev on the Tenth Anniversary of His Death (articles by A. Gubarev, S. Golovin, N. Pokrovsky, S. Lesnoy, etc.), Proceedings of the Moscow Obstetric-Gynecological Society for 1926, Moscow, 1927; Serdyukov M., Vladimir Fedorovich Snegirev, Medical Affairs, 1927, no. 11; Chernekhovskiy D., Scientific Works of V. F. Snegirev in the Light of Modern Gynecology, Gynecology and Obstetrics, 1927, no. 2.