Unknown pages of the history of medicine

Specialists of the FSBI “National Medical Research Center for Radiology” of the Ministry of Health of the Russia participated with great success in the All-Russian scientific and practical conference “Medical Museums of Russia: state and prospects of development”.

Deputy Minister of Health of the Russian Federation T. V. Semenova, Chairman of the Commission on the History of Medicine of the Department of Medical Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences R.U. Khabriev, Director of the National Research Institute of Public Health named after N.A. Semashko, MD A.B. Zudin addressed the audience with a welcoming speech.

 The report “125th anniversary of the P.A. Hertsen Institute of Radiology in facts, publications, memoirs” was made by the head of the Department of Radiation Therapy of the P.A. Hertsen Institute of Radiology – branch of the FSBI “National Medical Research Center for Radiology” of the Ministry of Health of the Russia, Ph.D., Associate Professor I.V. Droshneva.

She told in detail about the history of the creation of the Morozov Institute of Tumors and the memorial cabinet – museum of P.A. Hertsen, who led the Institute from 1922 to 1934.

In the annals of the museum, such rarities of the great surgeon and founder of the Moscow Oncological school have been preserved as part of his surgical instrument, the personal seal of Doctor of Medicine Hertsen, operating journals for 1918-1921 and for 1940-1942. Thanks to the latest research of archives and these documents, the authors of the article have established new facts in the history of the Institute. So, judging by the records of all surgical interventions, scrupulously reflected in the journal, it can be concluded that the Institute did not close during the Civil War to a typhoid hospital, as was commonly believed, but continued to work in the usual mode. Only the wounded fighters from the battlefields were added to the cancer patients, to whom Dr. Zykov, the second director of the Institute, sutured gunshot and other wounds along with the removal of malignant tumors (Journal of Operations 1918-1921).

The report on the history of the P.A. Hertsen Institute was praised by the conference participants, and Professor G.G. Slyshkin, chief researcher of the N.A. Semashko Research Institute of Public Health, admitted that he was pleasantly impressed by the depth of the presented work.

The conference was attended both in person and in absentia by employees of the St. Petersburg State Pediatric Medical University, the A.A. Smorodintsev Influenza Research Institute, the N.I. Pirogov RNIMU, the A.M. Evdokimov Moscow State Medical University, the Gamalei NITSEM, the A.N. Bakulev NMIC SSH, RMANPO of the Ministry of Health of Russia, the Main information and computing Center of the Ministry of Culture of Russia, the Medical University “Reaviz” (Moscow Samara), Bashkir, Tyumen, Volgograd, Stavropol, Ryazan, Altai and other state medical universities. The best speeches will be honored to be included in the collection of conference reports.

Press Service of the NMRRC of the Ministry of Health of Russia