Velyaminov

VELYAMINOV, Nikolai Aleksandrovich (1855-1920), academician, professor of the Military Medical Academy, outstanding Russian surgeon, corresponding member of the Royal College of Surgeons.

Until 1884 on the Caucasian front, from 1885 he held the position of physician at the Krestovozdvizhenskaya community of the Red Cross. In 1889 he defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic: "On the extirpation of the rectum with preliminary colotomy according to Madelung." In 1895 V. was appointed professor of the Academic Clinic of the Military Medical Academy. V. was primarily a talented clinician and possessed as a lecturer the amazing art of exposition. In 1912 he was elected head of the Military Medical Academy. Work at this post was a severe test for V. In the struggle to preserve the academic charter against the encroachment of the then influential War Minister Sukhomlinov to militarize the academy, V. was defeated and forced to resign.

As a scientist, V. amazed with his vast erudition, extraordinary capacity for work, and exceptional versatility of his research works. He always clothed his research in an exceptionally beautiful form, and rightly many of his works are considered classical, such as: his research on the effect of light, on the influence of ultraviolet rays on bacteria, on lupus, epitheliomas, and connective tissue. V. was a pioneer of phototherapy in Russia and laid the foundation for the scientific development of this issue.

The second cycle of V.'s works was devoted to the problems of surgical tuberculosis, tirelessly propagating at congresses, in the press, and in practice the modern principles of treatment of surgical tuberculosis. One of the first, V. investigated the effect of thyroid gland removal on arthritis; he described the thyrotoxic effect of the thyroid gland on certain forms of joint diseases and identified a special form "polyarthritis progressiva chronica thyreotoxica", which is now universally recognized.

An exceptional merit of V. is his work on the pathology and clinic of various forms of joint diseases. The result of this study are the classical monographs: "Syphilis of the Joints" (Russian Surgical Archive, 1903) and "The Doctrine of Joint Diseases" (M.-L., 1924). In addition to his scientific activities, V.'s medical-organizational work cannot be overlooked. He was interested in the issue of care, education, and assistance to the disabled, both of traumatic origin and as a result of bone tuberculosis and rickets.

For this purpose, he organized a shelter-school at the Maximilianovskaya hospital and wanted to link with a single chain the work in the clinic with patronage of such an institution where the connection with the surgically maimed would not be broken. With this idea, V. preceded Germany and presented his results at the congress in Berlin in 1907. V. also organized in Petersburg the first "First Aid Committee", which received enormous importance during the war.

In addition, V. initiated the study of professional traumatism. He was keenly interested in worker insurance and in 1907 organized the "Bureau of Expertise for Workers". In addition to his scientific and practical activities, V. worked in the Red Cross. He participated as an organizer of supplies and medical aid in the Chinese, Russo-Japanese, and imperialist wars. For a short time V. was the chief field sanitary inspector (from April 1917).

After the end of the imperialist war until his death, V. devoted himself entirely to literary work; unfortunately, some works of this period have not yet been published. V. was an outstanding writer-stylist. V. played a major role in Russian surgery; besides creating a school from his numerous students, he was the founder of the first surgical journal "Surgical Herald" (1885-1894), which later merged with the "Chronicle of Russian Surgery" (1896-1901), then was called "Russian Surgical Archive" (1902-09) and from 1910 - "Velyaminov's Surgical Archive" (existed until 1917). V.'s journal work was of great importance in the life of Russian surgeons, uniting almost all major Russian workers. For more details on this, see V.'s article: "25 years of life of the first Russian surgical journal", "Russian Surgical Archive", 1909 (also in "Velyaminov's Archive" for 1910).