Sergey Selitsky

SELITSKY, Sergey Apollinarievich (born 1883), professor of obstetrics and women's diseases, one of the leading representatives of the Moscow obstetric school. Upon graduating from Moscow University (1910), he remained at the clinic of Professor Makeev (later Professor Pobedinsky), serving first as a resident and then as an assistant until 1926. In 1913, he spent half a year on a scientific mission abroad. From 1926 to 1931, he headed the women's departments of the State Research Institute for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy named after V. P. Lebedeva (formerly the Moscow Maternity Establishment, which Selitsky reorganized into a clinic of obstetric and gynecological diseases). In 1931–1934, he participated in the organization of the Regional Scientific Institute for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy in Ivanovo-Voznesensk and currently heads the maternity sector and the clinic of obstetrics and women's diseases. In 1933, he was elected to the chair of obstetrics and women's diseases at the 2nd Moscow Medical Institute. During Selitsky's tenure at the Lebedeva Institute, the scientific activity of the clinic developed significantly (between 1926 and 1930, the clinic published 350 works of a scientific-popular, organizational, and social character). Selitsky takes an active part in public life. He served as chairman of the commission for the reform of maternity registration in the Union, chairman of the commission for the standardization of maternity hospitals, chairman of the subcommittee for the preparation of materials for the international conference on the nomenclature of causes of disease and mortality, and chairman of the scientific committee for the study of contraceptives. In Ivanovo-Voznesensk, he organized the regional scientific commission for the study of artificial and natural sterility and the regional commission for the fight against cancer of the female genital sphere, serving as chairman and consultant for both. Since 1928, he has been a member of the Academic Medical Council of the People's Commissariat of Health. Selitsky has authored over 100 scientific works. Among them, the most noteworthy are his works on eclampsia (“On the Question of Eclampsia in a Clinical Regard,” doctoral dissertation, Moscow, 1921), in which Selitsky steadfastly champions his therapeutic viewpoint, opposing the treatment of eclampsia as a disease caused by intoxication according to pre-established schemes using Stroganov’s method, and being one of the first to conduct treatment without any narcotics; as well as works on hyperemesis gravidarum, cerebro- and psychopathia, dermatoses of pregnant women and menstruation, nephropathy and nephroses of pregnancy, Caesarean section, obstetric operations, maternal mortality, surgical sterilization of women, and others. Selitsky described a new type of pregnancy toxicosis (cerebro- et psychopathia toxica gravidarum) as an independent disease; proposed a classification of dermatoses of pregnancy and menstruation; and compiled a scheme of endocrine gland correlation during pregnancy, which has been included in foreign textbooks, and others. A number of essays were written by Selitsky on the history of gynecology; he has contributed many responsible articles to the Great Medical Encyclopedia. Selitsky is a member of many scientific societies, a board member of the All-Union Society of Gynecologists and Obstetricians, an editor and co-editor of scientific journals, one of the founders of the journal Gynecology and Obstetrics, editor of many original and translated publications, and has served as editor of the Gynecological Department of the Great Medical Encyclopedia since its inception. Under Selitsky's guidance and editorship, the first collective textbook on obstetrics and women's diseases for midwives was published and translated into the Georgian language.