SHAAK

SHAAK Wilhelm Adolfovich (born in 1880), known Russian clinical surgeon. In 1903 he graduated from the Military Medical Academy, in 1907 he went abroad for 3 years, where he worked under Vir, Le- __,- _

xer and Eiselsberg. Upon returning from abroad, Sh. worked with Prof. G. F. Tseyd-ler in the surgical department of the Obukhovskaya Hospital in Petersburg and in the same year as assistant in the faculty surgical clinic of the St. Petersburg Women's Medical Institute (now the 1st Leningrad Medical Institute). In 1914 he defended his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Medicine (experimental research - 'Changes in the blood and blood-forming organs after amputations and exarticulations', SPB); in 1916 he was elected privat-docent, and in 1921 professor of the faculty surgical clinic of the Leningrad Medical Institute, in which position he still serves as of the present time. Since 1924 he has been a research fellow and consultant at the State Radiological Institute, and since 1932 he has also headed the department of pediatric surgery at the pediatric faculty of the 1st Leningrad Medical Institute. Sh. has been a member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Chirurgie in Berlin since 1910, a member of the Pirogov Surgical Society in Leningrad since 1912, where in 1926 he was elected deputy chairman, and in 1933 chairman of this society. Sh. is an active builder of the Soviet higher medical school; in 1927-30 he was dean of the medical faculty of the 1st Leningrad Medical Institute. Sh. has published over 80 scientific works on various questions of clinical and experimental surgery. The main of them concern: 1) etiology and operative intervention in diseases of arteries and veins; 2) surgery of the spleen in connection with diseases of the blood and blood-forming organs (essential thrombocytopenia, hemolytic jaundice); 3) prevention of postoperative complications of cancer of the rectum. Sh. is one of the pioneers in the USSR who persistently promoted the idea of local anesthesia. He wrote together with L. A. Andreev a manual on local anesthesia, which was awarded the prize of the Central Committee of the Union of Medical Workers ('Local Anesthesia in Surgery', M.-L., 1928). Shaak is the author and editor of numerous guides on surgery.

Sh. is one of the pioneers in the USSR who persistently promoted the idea of local anesthesia. He wrote together with L. A. Andreev a manual on local anesthesia, which was awarded the prize of the Central Committee of the Union of Medical Workers ('Local Anesthesia in Surgery', M.-L., 1928). Shaak is the author and editor of numerous guides on surgery.