Sikorsky

Sikorsky Ivan Aleksandrovich (born in 1845), known Russian psychiatrist. After graduating from the medical faculty of Kiev University in 1869, he was retained at the university for further improvement, in 1873 he moved to Petersburg and began working in the clinic of Balinsky, in 1885 he returned to Kiev to the chair of psychiatry and nervous diseases, which he held for more than 25 years. S. had very diverse interests and, besides psychiatry, devoted much attention to questions of psychology, especially of childhood, and pedagogy; one of the first in Russia he began to work in child psychopathology. In 1896 S. founded in Kiev the journal 'Questions of Nervous and Mental Medicine'. The greatest significance were his works devoted to the so-called mental epidemics: 'Psychopathic epidemic of 1892 in the Kiev province (malevanchina)' (Kiev, 1893) and 'Epidemic voluntary deaths and murders in the Ternovsky khutors (near Tiraspol)' (Kiev, 1897). In addition, he wrote the monograph 'On Stuttering' (SPB, 188s), textbooks on psychiatry, psychology, pedagogy and many journal articles. S. was a staunch reactionary and readily put his specialty at the service of the police-bureaucratic apparatus of the monarchical system. Thus, appearing as an expert at the famous Beilis trial (1913), he supported with all his authority the anti-Semitic slander about the existence of ritual murders. His work 'Epidemic voluntary deaths etc.' was also built along the line of propaganda of official Orthodoxy.