Grigory Abramovich Klyachkin (; 3 October 1866, Nyasvizh, Slutsky Uyezd, Minsk Governorate, Russian Empire – 21 July 1946, Kazan, Tatar ASSR, RSFSR, USSR) was a Russian and Soviet physiotherapist and neurologist, and scientist-physician.
He was born in 1866 in Nyasvizh to a Jewish family, he moved to Kazan and graduated from the Medical Faculty of Kazan Imperial University in 1891, then he worked in the clinic of neurologist Professor L. O. Darkshevich. In 1897, he defended his dissertation on the study of cranial nerves and received the academic degree of Doctor of Medicine. Inspired by the progress in physiotherapy and balneology he observed in Europe, he opened his own clinic in Kazan that same year. He introduced advanced treatment methods, becoming the founder of physiotherapy in Kazan. In 1905, he served in hospitals during the Russo-Japanese War. He participated in organizing the first emergency medical services in Kazan, taught, and was a member of the Kazan Merchant Assembly. In 1913, he treated the Tatar poet Gabdulla Tuqay, who soon died of tuberculosis.
In 1914, he joined the First World War, managing a neurological hospital in the frontline zone. In 1917, he returned to Kazan and joined the Kazan Military Hospital. During the Kazan capture by the White Army, he hid Bolsheviks under the guise of patients in his clinic, which was requisitioned by the Soviet authorities after the arrival of the Red Army in 1918. In 1920, he participated in organizing the Kazan Clinical Institute, becoming the head of the physiotherapy department. In 1921, he was appointed head of the newly established physiotherapy department, organizing a physiatric clinic based on his former hospital. In 1925, he was elected professor of the physiatry department. Simultaneously, in 1931–1932, as an associate professor, he headed the physiatry course at the Kazan Medical Institute. He retired in 1937 and died in Kazan in 1946 at the age of 79.
Biography
Family and origin Girsh-David or Grigory Abramovich Klyachkin was born on 3 October 1866 in the county town of Nyasvizh, Minsk Governorate. By religion, he was Jewish. His parents were Abram Leibov Klyachkin and his wife Basya. The Klyachkin surname originated from the neighboring town of Klyetsk. His father was a craftsman engaged in furrier work, became wealthy, and rose to the rank of second guild merchant. In Nyasvizh, he owned a large house with a garden, governesses, servants, and a carriage. Having the right to live outside the Pale of Settlement, Abram moved the family to Kazan —a city known for its advanced education system— for the sake of his children's well-being. In Kazan, he did not confirm his merchant status and returned to being a furrier. After living in Kazan for about half a century, Abram Klyachkin died in 1917.
The Klyachkin family had six children: four sons and two daughters. Grigory was the eldest of the brothers. Nota (Naum, Nikolai) graduated from Kazan University, worked in Verkhneuralsk, was awarded the title of Hero of Labor, and died in prison during the Stalinist repressions. Mikhail (Meilakh, Meinar) also graduated from Kazan University and moved to Samara, where he became a well-known physician and owned his own clinic. David became an architect and emigrated to America during the revolution. The daughters, Ginda and Meri, lived and worked in Moscow, and before the Great Patriotic War, moved to Leningrad, where they died of starvation during the Siege of Leningrad.
Education He graduated from the Second Kazan Men's Gymnasium, where, despite a negative note in calligraphy, he received a silver medal, which exempted him from the taxable estate. In 1886, he enrolled in the Medical Faculty of Kazan Imperial University under a five percent quota for Jews without taking an entrance exam. During his studies, he prepared a paper titled Pathological Changes in the Nervous System Under the Influence of Phosphorus Poisoning, which won an award. He graduated from the university in 1891 and began working in Kazan's medical institutions. He was accepted into the neurological clinic of Kazan University, having worked for a year as a district doctor in a zemstvo hospital. In 1893, he joined the clinic of neurologist Professor L. O. Darkshevich, where he worked as an unpaid resident, living and studying on his father's funds. In Darkshevich's clinic, where Klyachkin worked for the next four years, his name was Russified from Girsh to Grigory.In 1894, Darkshevich suggested a topic for Klyachkin's doctoral dissertation, namely, to study the origin and central pathways of several cranial nerves using the embryological method of Flechsig through experiments on cats and dogs, staining their myelin sheaths with a solution of osmic acid and Müller's fluid. Funded by his father, Klyachkin was sent on a European trip to visit Darkshevich's colleagues, including the institute of Professor Rudolf Virchow in Berlin. Upon returning to Kazan, he began the experimental part of his dissertation. While working in the laboratories of Darkshevich and N. A. Mislavsky, Klyachkin identified differences in the staining of damaged and healthy myelin through experimental-analytical studies on cross-sections of the brains of experimental animals. Thus, he traced the pathways and connections of the V, VI, VII, IX, X, XI, and XII cranial nerves, refining or refuting the conclusions of his predecessors in the nascent field of brain structure studies. In 1897, his doctoral dissertation, Materials for the Study of the Origin and Central Pathways of the V, VI, VII, IX, X, XI, and XII Pairs of Cranial Nerves (Experimental-Anatomical Study), was published. Its defense at the medical faculty council of Kazan University was successful, and Klyachkin received the academic degree of Doctor of Medicine. The work attracted attention in the neurological community, sparked some criticism, and even led to correspondence between Klyachkin and neurologist V. P. Osipov, who disagreed with his scientific conclusions.B. I. V. G. A. Klyachkin. Materials to the doctrine of the origin and central course of the V, VI, VII, IX, X, XI and XII pairs of cranial nerves. Kazan. 1897. Neurological Bulletin. Kazan: Organ of the Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists at the Imperial Kazan University, 1897. Vol. V, No. 2. pp. 179-180. Osipov V. P. Further studies in the field of central endings of the X pair of cranial nerves. Neurological Bulletin. Kazan: Organ of the Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists at the Imperial Kazan University, 1898. Vol. VI, No. 2. pp. 155-168. Klyachkin G. A. A few words about the article by Dr. Osipov: “Further studies in the field of the central endings of the X pair of cranial nerves". Neurological Bulletin. Kazan: Organ of the Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists at the Imperial Kazan University, 1898. Vol. VI, No. 3. pp. 244-245. Osipov V. P. Letter to the editor. Kazan: Organ of the Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists at the Imperial Kazan University, 1899. Vol. VII, No. 1. pp. 184-185. Klyachkin's extensive study of seven of the twelve cranial nerves later became the basis for training numerous students at many medical universities. However, the path to university science was closed to him as a Jew who refused to convert.
Medicine For some time, Klyachkin worked at the country's first sanatorium for alcoholics, opened by Darkshevich in collaboration with the Kazan Temperance Society, excelling as a clinician and practicing, like all of Darkshevich's students, at the intersection of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry. Nevertheless, he was deeply impressed by his European experiences, where he was struck by the organization of medical care, the development of private clinics and therapeutic institutes, and treatments using electric currents, light, heat, cold, mud, water, and massage. The scarcity of domestic treatment methods prompted him to open his own clinic modeled on the best European examples. Klyachkin aimed to introduce physiotherapy and balneology equipment in Kazan, which had only recently begun appearing in the markets of Saint Petersburg and Moscow. At that time, he lived in Nikolsky Rooms on Prolomnaya Street in Kazan.Marina Podolskaya. Professor Klyachkin and the last shelter of Tukai. Journal “Kazan”. 2016. № 4. pp. 110-119. Based on several published scientific works, Klyachkin prepared a project for his medical facility, which was approved on December 22, 1897, by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire as the Charter of a Hydrotherapy Clinic with a Cabinet for Electric and Massage Treatments by Doctor of Medicine G. A. Klyachkin in Kazan. Initially, he rented space in the tenement house of merchant Zhuravlyov at the corner of Voznesenskaya Street and Molochny Lane for the clinic and his apartment. Advertisements were placed in Kazan newspapers, and Klyachkin's business thrived. On May 22, 1903, at his request, the ministry approved a new clinic charter with an inpatient facility, an outpatient clinic for walk-in patients, therapeutic, surgical, and gynecological departments, and a large physiotherapy and hydrotherapy department. For this purpose, Klyachkin rented the entire building and courtyard structures from Zhuravlyov's heirs. According to some sources, his father also provided funds for the clinic.
In his clinic, Klyachkin used cutting-edge electrical equipment modeled on the best foreign sanatoriums, including ultraviolet lamps by Nobel laureate Niels Finsen. According to newspaper advertisements, the hospital, called the Institute of Physical Treatment Methods, operated year-round, accepted walk-in patients daily, had permanent beds, offered consultations with doctors, and included departments for nervous, internal, and gynecological diseases. It offered massage, a hydro-electro-phototherapy facility, an X-ray room, and equipment for D'Arsonval currents and radioactive quackery for treating gout, neuralgia, rheumatism, and diabetes with radium. The clinic was unparalleled among state and private hospitals, renowned for its high-quality medical care and the democratic attitude of its staff. Klyachkin himself held unquestionable authority and was widely known in Kazan. As the founder of Kazan physiotherapy, he authored works on hydro- and electrotherapy methods and the physiological foundations of heliotherapy. It is even possible that he invented the germicidal lamp. Klyachkin prospered and became a member of the Kazan Merchant Assembly; he owned a two-story apartment with a garage and a car in the city center on Lobachevsky Street.In 1905, together with his friend an ophthalmologist A. A. Elinson, he was drafted as a doctor for the Russo-Japanese War, where he worked in a hospital.Marina Podolskaya. There are small museums! Marina Podolskaya talked to Rostislav Tuishev. Kazan Magazine. 2016. № 4. pp. 104-110. Elinson, also a student of Mislavsky, discovered the vasomotor nerves of the retina under his guidance in 1896, taught at the Kazan Paramedic School, headed the eye department of the Kazan Provincial Hospital, and later ran a large ophthalmological clinic on Voskresenskaya Street. Nearby, on Prolomnaya Street, was the clinic of R. A. Luria, who also served as a doctor in the Russo-Japanese War. Elinson, Luria, and Klyachkin were friends and collaborated on medical projects. Thus, in 1902, with the support of the Kazan Physicians' Society and Luria personally, the first free ambulance service in Kazan was organized at Klyachkin's clinic. Klyachkin and Elinson funded a carriage stationed in the clinic's courtyard, created a duty schedule for staff, who responded immediately to calls.
Gabdulla Tuqay's treatment