The Soviet pathophysiologist Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogomolets became famous for the creation of the doctrine of the interaction of 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 institute in Ukraine and Russia.
Biography
Bogomolets Alexander Alexandrovich was born in Kiev on 05/12/1881. His father, Alexander Mikhailovich, was the son of the titular adviser and assessor of the Nezhinsky court, Mikhail Fedorovich Bogomolets. He was a zemstvo doctor, entered into cooperation with the Narodnaya Volya, 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-wing radical organization. In January 1881, she was arrested and sentenced to ten years of hard labor.
The biography of A. A. Bogomolets from the very beginning was not easy. He was born in the infirmary of Lukyanovskaya prison, where his mother was under investigation. After almost a month, the gendarmes handed the baby to the father of Sofia Nikolaevna, and he 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 first saw his mother 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 - after a short time, the woman died from tuberculosis.
Education
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 Grace Prince Alexander Bezborodko. The boy was successful in his studies, for which he was awarded a commendation sheet and the book "Notes of the Hunter" by Turgenev.
In 1894, Alexander and his dad moved to Chisinau, where he continued to receive education at the Chisinau gymnasium. In the penultimate year of study, he was expelled "for the dangerous direction of thoughts." After that, the father with great difficulty placed his son in the first male gymnasium in Kiev. In 1900, the young man graduated with honors and entered the University of Kiev at the law faculty, wanting to become a criminal lawyer. However, Alexander Alexandrovich Bogomolets soon became disillusioned with jurisprudence and in 1901 transferred to Novorossiysk University at the Faculty of Medicine. At the end of his studies, there were already five scientific papers on the student’s track record.
At Novorossiysk University, Alexander became interested in the study of 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 working 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 as a private 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. Upon returning, Alexander Alexandrovich Bogomolets became an extraordinary professor of the department of bacteriology and general pathology at Nikolaev University of the city of Saratov.
Saratov period
At the university, the doctor of medicine, together with his students, laid the foundations of pathophysiology - a new scientific field. Bogomolets independently and for his own money purchased equipment for the department, he himself recruited a staff of assistants. He also conducted successful activities as a teacher, his lectures became popular among students.
In the veterinary and agronomic institutes of Saratov, Alexander Alexandrovich created the Department of General Pathology and Microbiology. Later, he wondered about the opening of a special bacteriological institute in the city.
In 1917, the doctor took an active part in organizing Saratov medical courses for women, which he later headed. Along with lecturing, he conducted clinical trials, led 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 Microbe Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology of the South-East of Russia. To Saratov from St. Petersburg, the professor transported all the drugs and equipment that were used in his development of a vaccine against cholera, plague and anthrax there.
In 1919, doctors of medicine were appointed senior epidemiologist of the Saratov Department of Health and included in the commission dealing with typhus. At the same time, he began to develop the world's first textbook on pathophysiology. This work, the Bogomolets continued until the end of his life. The Short Course of Pathological Physiology, published in 1921, eventually grew to a five-volume. Alexander Alexandrovich for this work in 1941 was awarded the Stalin Prize.
In 1923, the scientist organized the first anti-malaria mobile 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 cytotoxic immune antireticular serum, which activated human immunity and accelerated wound healing. This tool 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 the 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 death of the director, Bogomolets took his post. Under the guidance of the scientist, a unique method for preserving donated blood was developed, which is still used without fundamental changes. At the same time, Alexander Alexandrovich with his students revealed the universality of the first blood group in terms of donation.
In Moscow, Bogomolets wrote many scientific works, among which one can distinguish The riddle of death and The crisis of endocrinology 1927, Edema. Essay on pathogenesis ”and“ On vegetative exchange centers ”in 1928,“ Arterial hypertension ”in 1929. Also, the doctor of medicine significantly expanded and revised the textbook“ Pathological physiology ”, in 1929 his third edition was published.
Moving to Kiev
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. A scientist with a group of students moved to Kiev and created there institutes of experimental biology and physiology. The newly elected president completely rebuilt the structure of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. On the basis of scattered laboratories and departments, he formed entire research institutes and attracted promising young scientists to work in them. In general terms, the structure of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, laid down by Academician Bogomolets, remains today.
Since 1932, Alexander Alexandrovich was a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1937, he was elected to the Supreme Council.
Energy Theory of Aging
The pilgrims have always been interested in the extension of human life. A few months before the start of the Second World War, he created a dispensary in Kiev to combat premature old age. Later, the Institute of Gerontology was formed on its basis. Two years earlier, in 1939, the academician wrote a pamphlet entitled “Extending Life”, in which he put forward his theory of aging. In this work, the Bogomolets substantiated whether it is possible and realistic to extend a person’s life to one hundred or more years.
In the aging process, the scientist attached special 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 due to the health of connective tissue.
It should be noted that after the death of Alexander Alexandrovich, this teaching was questioned. In 1950, an away meeting of the USSR Academy of Sciences was held in Kiev, at which the theory of Bogomolets was called unscientific. He was accused posthumously of “planting an idealistic worldview,” as a result of which the institutes founded by the academician in Kiev were closed. They resumed their work only after the death of Stalin.
During the war
At the beginning of the Second World War, Alexander Alexandrovich, 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 fall of 1942, by order of Stalin, he took part in the atomic project.
Hard work affected the academician's health. In October 1943, Bogomolets suffered spontaneous pneumothorax and a pleural breakthrough due to long-standing tuberculosis (a scientist contracted it in childhood when he visited his mother in hard labor). Then the disease was stopped, and in 1944 the academician returned to Kiev.
A 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 pilgrimage family. The son followed in his father's footsteps and also became a pathophysiologist, was a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and honored worker of science and technology of the Ukrainian SSR.
Continued the medical dynasty and the daughter of Oleg Alexandrovich. The eldest, Catherine, worked as a professor at the Department of Pathological Anatomy at the National Medical University of Kiev, and was also an anesthetist 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 apartment-museum.
Last years
After the war, Alexander Bogomolets lived in Kiev and was engaged in the reconstruction of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. In July 1946, he recurred pneumothorax. This happened in the country, where his colleagues and friends were with the academician. All their attempts to stop the disease were unsuccessful, and the academician died on July 19, 1946.
Alexander Alexandrovich was buried in the park, broken at the scientist’s house by himself and his students. Bogomolets was taken to the burial place on an artillery carriage with military honors.