Vasily Shervinsky

SHERVINSKY, Vasily Dmitrievich (born 1849), a prominent therapist and professor at Moscow University. The life and work of Shervinsky took place in Moscow, where he was raised and received his higher education at Moscow University (1868–1873). Initially, he devoted himself primarily to pathological anatomy, working as a prosector under the guidance of Professor Klein. At the same time, however, he continued his medical practice at the Staro-Ekaterininskaya Hospital and attended Ostroumov's clinic. He spent 1881–1882 abroad in the laboratory of Cohnheim, in the Leipzig clinic of Strümpell and Wagner, and then in Paris with Potain and Charcot. In 1884, he received an extraordinary professorship in pathological anatomy. Simultaneously, he began giving lectures on private pathology and therapy. He took the chair of private pathology and therapy in 1897 and from that time devoted himself to clinical work. He received the faculty clinic in 1898. Protesting against the policy of Kasso, he left the university in 1912. Shortly after the October Revolution, he was appointed a member of the Scientific Medical Council under the People's Commissariat of Health. From 1925, he took a great part in the work of the Endocrinology Institute, of which he served as director for several years. Since 1922, he has worked at the KUBU (KSU) polyclinic. In 1928, he received the title of Honored Scientist. For Russian medicine, Shervinsky was of great importance as an organizer and leader of a number of medical societies. In the seventies, he was one of the founders of the Moscow Medical Society, which was transformed into the Moscow Therapeutic Society. Shervinsky served as the permanent chairman of this society for 25 years, and in 1913 he was elected its honorary chairman. For many years, he was a member of the board of the Pirogov Society. He also initiated the creation of the Society of Congresses of Russian Therapists. Furthermore, he was the chairman of the League for the Fight against Tuberculosis, participated in anti-alcohol congresses, and was the initiator and chairman of the Society for the Improvement of Health Resorts of Russia. As a pioneer of Soviet endocrinology, he founded the Moscow Endocrinological Society in 1925. In his teaching and clinical work, Shervinsky tried to use the most diverse points of view on disease and the patient as widely and comprehensively as possible. Having begun his study of clinical practice under the one-sided anatomical

dominance, he very soon began to attach primary importance to clinical observation, without, however, falling into crude empiricism and constantly introducing into the clinic everything new that the development of science brought with it. Thanks to this, Shervinsky's clinic had a great influence on the dissemination of medical knowledge and, after the death of Zakharyin and Ostroumov, played a leading role at Moscow University. Among his students, M. P. Konchalovsky and E. E. Fromgold are heads of departments at Moscow University. Shervinsky has authored several dozen works. His dissertation on fat embolism of the lungs was written in 1879. His work on cavernous angioma of the liver, like his dissertation, is devoted to an anatomical question, but both works also touch upon clinical aspects. Subsequently, clinical topics were brought to the fore more and more. Already from 1911, Shervinsky began to take an interest in questions of endocrinology (a report on the role of the adrenal glands in pathology at a congress of therapists). In recent years, he has written several works concerning the question of Basedow's disease. Shervinsky edited the first Russian textbook on endocrinology.