Soviet pathophysiologist Aleksandr Alexandrovich Bogomolets became famous for creating the doctrine of the interaction between the body and the tumor, which radically changed the idea of tumor growth that existed at that time. He was the founder of the Ukrainian and Russian schools of gerontology, endocrinology and pathophysiology, was the founder of the first medical research institutes in Ukraine and Russia.
Biography
Bogomolets Alexander Alexandrovich was born in Kyiv on May 12, 1881. His father, Alexander Mikhailovich, was the son of Mikhail Fedorovich Bogomolets, titular councilor and assessor of the Nizhinsky court. He was a zemstvo doctor, entered into cooperation with the People's Will, for which he was arrested more than once. Mother, Sofia Nikolaevna Prisetskaya, was the daughter of a retired lieutenant, was in the leadership of the populist left-radical organization. In January 1881, she was arrested and sentenced to ten years hard labor.
The biography of A. A. Bogomolets was not easy from the very beginning. He appeared onlight in the infirmary of the Lukyanovskaya prison, where his mother was under investigation. Almost a month later, the gendarmes handed over the baby to Sofia Nikolaevna's father, who took him to the Poltava region, to his estate in the village of Klimovo.
Later, Alexander Mikhailovich took his son and began to live with him in Nizhyn. Sasha saw his mother for the first time only in 1891, when his father, with the help of Leo Tolstoy, managed to get permission to visit Sofia Nikolaevna in Siberia. This was also their last meeting - a short time later the woman died of tuberculosis.
Education
At first, Alexander Bogomolets studied at home, and in 1892, returning from Siberia, he entered the men's gymnasium at the Nizhyn Historical and Philological Institute of His Serene Highness Prince Alexander Bezborodko. The boy was successful in his studies, for which he was awarded a certificate of merit and the book "Notes of a Hunter" by Turgenev.
In 1894, Alexander moved with his father to Chisinau, where he continued to get an education at the Chisinau Gymnasium. In his penultimate year of study, he was expelled "for a dangerous line of thought." After that, the father, with great difficulty, got his son into the First Men's Gymnasium in Kyiv. In 1900, the young man graduated with honors and entered the Kyiv University at the Faculty of Law, wishing to become a forensic lawyer. However, Alexander Alexandrovich Bogomolets soon became disillusioned with jurisprudence and in 1901 transferred to the Novorossiysk University at the Faculty of Medicine. At the end of his studies, there were already five scientific papers in the student's track record.
At Novorossiysk UniversityAlexander became interested in studying the nervous system and endocrinology. More than once they wanted to expel him from the university for political reasons. But, despite this, in 1907 Bogomolets graduated with honors from the university and remained to work in it as an assistant in the department of general pathology.
Scientific career
In 1909, Alexander Alexandrovich, at the age of 28, defended his doctoral dissertation at the Imperial Military Medical Academy of St. Petersburg. The work of the scientist was highly appreciated, and he became the youngest doctor of medicine in the Russian Empire. In the same year, Bogomolets was elected assistant professor at the Department of General Pathology of the Medical Faculty of Novorossiysk University.
Soon the scientist went to Paris, to the Sorbonne. The purpose of the trip was to prepare for a professorship. After returning, Alexander Alexandrovich Bogomolets became an extraordinary professor at the Department of Bacteriology and General Pathology at the Nikolaev University of Saratov.
Saratov period
At the university, the doctor of medicine, together with his students, laid the foundations of pathophysiology, a new scientific branch. Bogomolets purchased equipment for the department on his own and at his own expense, he recruited a staff of assistants. He also led a successful activity as a teacher, his lectures became popular with students.
At the veterinary and agronomic institutes of Saratov, Alexander Alexandrovich created the departments of general pathology and microbiology. Later, he wondered about opening a special bacteriological institute in the city.
In 1917the doctor took an active part in organizing Saratov medical courses for women, which he later headed. Along with lecturing, he conducted clinical studies and received patients. One of the first to see the connection between allergies and immunity.
After the October Revolution
In October 1918, Alexander Alexandrovich Bogomolets created the first medical research institute in Russia - the Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology of the South-East of Russia "Microbe". The professor moved from St. Petersburg to Saratov all the drugs and equipment that were used in his development there of a vaccine against cholera, plague and anthrax.
In 1919, the doctor of medicine was appointed senior epidemiologist of the Saratov Department of He alth and included in the commission dealing with the fight against typhus. At the same time, he began to develop the world's first textbook on pathophysiology. Bogomolets continued this work until the end of his life. Published in 1921, A Short Course in Pathological Physiology eventually grew into a five-volume edition. Alexander Alexandrovich was awarded the Stalin Prize for this work in 1941.
In 1923, the scientist organized the first mobile antimalarial laboratory in the Soviet Union in Saratov. In the same period, he began to study connective tissue and its role in immune responses.
In Saratov, Bogomolets invented a cytotoxic immune anti-reticular serum that activated human immunity and accelerated wound healing. This remedy has been successfully used to treat fractures.and infectious diseases. During the Second World War, there was a special demand for serum in Soviet evacuation and field hospitals.
In Moscow
In 1925, Alexander Alexandrovich came to the capital to work at the Second Moscow University as head of the department of pathophysiology of the medical faculty. Later he participated in the creation of the world's first Institute of Blood Transfusion and Hematology, headed by A. A. Bogdanov. After the director's death, Bogomolets took over his position. Under the guidance of the scientist, a unique method of preserving donated blood was developed, which is still used without fundamental changes. At the same time, Alexander Alexandrovich and his students revealed the universality of the first blood type in terms of donation.
In Moscow, Bogomolets wrote many scientific papers, among which are “The Mystery of Death” and “The Crisis of Endocrinology” of 1927, “Edema. Outline of pathogenesis" and "On autonomic exchange centers" in 1928, "Arterial hypertension" in 1929. Also, the doctor of medicine significantly expanded and revised the textbook "Pathological Physiology", in 1929 its third edition was published.
Moving to Kyiv
In 1930, Alexander Alexandrovich was elected president of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, and a year earlier he became a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. The scientist with a group of students moved to Kyiv and created institutes of experimental biology and physiology there. The newly elected president completely rebuilt the structure of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. On the basis of disparate laboratories and departments, he formed entire research institutes and involvedthey have promising young scientists. In general terms, the structure of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, laid down by Academician Bogomolets, is preserved even now.
Since 1932, Alexander Alexandrovich was a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1937 he was elected to the Supreme Soviet.
Energy theory of aging
The pilgrim has always been interested in questions of extending human life. A few months before the start of the Second World War, he created a dispensary in Kyiv to combat premature old age. Later, on the basis of it, the Institute of Gerontology was formed. Two years earlier, in 1939, the academician wrote a pamphlet called Life Extension, in which he put forward his theory of aging. Bogomolets in this work substantiated whether it is possible and realistic to extend a person's life to a hundred years or more.
In the aging process, the scientist attached particular importance to connective tissue, calling its cells and extracellular structures the main elements of the body that provide physiological activity. In his opinion, longevity is achieved precisely through the he alth of connective tissue.
It should be noted that after the death of Alexander Alexandrovich, this doctrine was questioned. In 1950, a visiting meeting of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR was held in Kyiv, at which the theory of Bogomolets was called unscientific. Posthumously, he was accused of "implanting an idealistic worldview", as a result of which the institutions founded by the academician in Kyiv were closed. They resumed their work only after Stalin's death.
During the war
At the beginning of the Second World War AlexanderAleksandrovich, together with the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, was evacuated to Ufa. There he organized the release of cytotoxic antireticular serum, intended for the treatment of gunshot wounds and trophic ulcers. In 1941-1943. worked at the Bashkir Medical Institute. In the autumn of 1942, by order of Stalin, he took part in the atomic project.
Hard work has affected the academician's he alth. In October 1943, Bogomolets suffered a spontaneous pneumothorax and a rupture of the pleura due to long-standing tuberculosis (the scientist contracted it as a child when he visited his mother in hard labor). Then the disease was stopped, and in 1944 the academician returned to Kyiv.
Family
In 1910, Alexander Alexandrovich Bogomolets married the granddaughter of Major General Tikhotsky, Olga Georgievna. A year later, the couple had a son, Oleg. He was the only child in the Bogomolets family. The son followed in the footsteps of his father and also became a pathophysiologist, was a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and an honored worker of science and technology of the Ukrainian SSR.
The daughters of Oleg Alexandrovich continued the medical dynasty. The eldest, Ekaterina, worked as a professor at the Department of Pathological Anatomy at the National Medical University of Kyiv, and was also an anesthesiologist at the Kiev Research Institute of Thoracic Surgery and Tuberculosis. She died in 2013. The youngest, Alexandra, was a pediatric resuscitator. She is now retired and runs her grandfather's museum apartment.
Recent years
After the end of the war, Alexander Bogomolets lived in Kyiv and was engaged in the reconstruction of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. In July 1946 he hadrecurrent pneumothorax occurred. It happened at the dacha, where his colleagues and friends were with the academician. All their attempts to stop the disease were unsuccessful, and on July 19, 1946, the academician died.
Alexander Alexandrovich was buried in the park, laid out near the scientist's house by himself and his students. Bogomolets was taken to the burial place on an artillery carriage with military honors.
