Tarnovsky

Tarnovsky Venyamin Mikhailovich (1837-1907), professor, founder of the Russian school of venereology; graduated from Moscow University in 1859, from 1860 to 1871 worked at the St. Petersburg Kalinkin Hospital, then headed the first department of syphilology established in Russia at the Military Medical Academy. The main works of T. and the school he created are the comprehensive study of syphilitic infection, its course, transmission to offspring, and therapy. T. was a follower of Ricord, thanks to which Russian syphilology did not experience disputes between supporters of the dualistic and unitary theory of venereal diseases (see Venereology). By widely highlighting in his works the importance of venerealism, especially of domestic syphilis in the Russian countryside, T. created a midwifery school at the Kalinkin Hospital for training midwives to work in rural areas. T. also authored a number of works on prostitution, which however were extremely reactionary; such were T.'s proposals for the establishment of soldiers' houses of tolerance—'to select young prostitutes from villages, arriving soldiers' wives, widows, etc., not yet infected with syphilis'; being a supporter of the regulation of prostitution, T. even opposed attempts at its 'restriction' put forward by abolitionists. In 1885, T. founded the Russian Syphilological and Dermatological Society (the first specialized scientific society in Europe); in 1897, at T.'s initiative, the All-Russian Congress of Syphilologists and Zemstvo Doctors was convened to discuss measures against the spread of syphilis in Russia. T.'s main works: 'Diagnosis of Venereal Diseases in Women and Children' (St. Petersburg, 1867); 'Course of Venereal Diseases' (St. Petersburg, 1870); 'Sexual Maturity, Its Course, Deviations and Diseases' (St. Petersburg, 1886), 'Prostitution and Abolitionism' (St. Petersburg, 1888).