Yushchenko, Alexander Ivanovich

YUSHCHENKO Alexander Ivanovich (1869–1936), academician of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, Honored Scientist, and renowned psychiatrist. He graduated from the Medical Faculty of Kharkov University in 1893. He worked under Professor P. I. Kovalevsky (Kharkov, Warsaw); in 1896–97, he worked in the clinic of V. M. Bekhterev and the laboratory of I. P. Pavlov, and from 1901 to 1915 in the biochemical laboratory of the Institute of Experimental Medicine (Nencki, Sieber-Shumova). In 1896, he defended his dissertation on the structure of sympathetic nodes in mammals and humans. Subsequently, Yushchenko wrote about 120 works, the most important of which include: a series of biochemical studies on mental illnesses, synthesized in the course ‘The Essence of Mental Illnesses and Biological-Chemical Research into Them’ (St. Petersburg, 1912), which was translated into foreign languages. In these works, he demonstrated changes in oxidative, enzymatic, and other processes in the mentally ill and in animals with endocrine lesions; related to these are Yushchenko's works on the chemistry of digestive processes; research dedicated to Yushchenko's doctrine of constitutions, which he called evolutionary-genetic; Yushchenko identifies three types: the eotype, paleotype, and neotype, created as a result of lifestyle, production-labor relations, and other factors inherent to the epochs of human development; works on the essence and classification of neuroses [acute reactoses, true neuroses, persononeuroses (goal-oriented)] and pathological characters (epileptoidy, schizoidy, psychasthenoidy, hysteroidy, cycloidy, and some others). The analysis of both is given taking into account the features of the ‘levels’ of personality, the vegetative system, typology, social orientation, etc. Being a professor at several medical universities (Yuryev, Voronezh, Rostov-on-Don, Kharkov), Yushchenko created a large school; a number of his students hold chairs of psychiatry and neuropathology. Since 1930, Yushchenko worked in Kharkov, holding several positions in scientific research and pedagogical activities. In 1934, he was elected a full member of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Yushchenko's public activity was intensive: honorary member and chairman of several scientific societies, member of the Rostov City Council, the Don Executive Committee, the Regional Executive Committee, chairman of the Regional Bureau of the Section of Scientific Workers, editor of various journals, etc. He was a member of the English Medico-Psychological Association and the International Committee for Mental Hygiene.