Peter Alexandrovich Herzen (May 20, 1871 January 2, 1947) was a Soviet surgeon, doctor of medicine, healthcare manager, and professor. He was also one of the pioneers of oncology in the USSR.
He was the son of the Swiss physiologist Alexander Alexandrovich Herzen and the grandson of the Russian publicist, writer, and philosopher Alexander Ivanovich Herzen.
Herzen was the head of the Department of Operative Surgery at the 1st Moscow State University from 1919 to 1921, the head of the Department of General Surgery at the First Moscow State University from 1921 to 1934, the head of the Department of Hospital Surgery at the 1st Moscow Medical Institute from 1934 to 1947, the director of the Institute for the Treatment of Tumors from 1922 to 1934, a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union (1939), an Honored Scientist of the RSFSR (1934), an honorary member of the French Academy of Surgery, a member of the International Society of Surgeons, a member of the Higher Attestation Commission, the chairman of the boards of the All-Russian and All-Union Societies of Surgeons from 1926 to 1928 and from 1935 to 1936, and chairman of the XXI (1929) and XXIV (1938) All-Union Congresses of Surgeons.
After his death in 1947, the Moscow Research Institute of Oncology was named after him.
Biography
Origins and education
Peter Alexandrovich Herzen was born on in Florence, Kingdom of Italy, into the family of the Swiss physiologist of Russian origin Alexander Alexandrovich Herzen and the daughter of a peasant, the Italian Thérèse (Toreze) Félici (Thérèse Félici, 1851–1927). Besides Peter, the family had nine more children: three girls and six boys. He was the grandson of the Russian publicist, writer, and philosopher Alexander Ivanovich Herzen.
In 1896, Peter Alexandrovich graduated from the medical faculty of the University of Lausanne, where he attended lectures by professors such as Kaufmann, Heinrich Stilling, Roth, Bumm, after which he worked for one year as an unsalaried assistant in the clinic of the Swiss surgeon César Roux. At the same time, he conducted researhes in his father's physiological laboratory at the University of Lausanne. Just one year after graduating from university, Herzen successfully defended his dissertation in Lausanne for the degree of Doctor of Medicine titled On the Causes of Death after Bilateral Vagotomy in Their Relation to Survival Conditions, based on extensive experimental material and receiving positive reviews in the specialized literature.Nushtaev, Igor. "A Worthy Grandson of a Great Grandfather." Medical Gazette, no. 51, July 13, 2007. Access date: November 3, 2012. Archived: December 4, 2013. After moving to the Russian Empire In 1897, after declining César Roux's offer of a staff assistant position in the clinic, Herzen moved to Russia, as his grandfather had willed.Peter Alexandrovich Herzen was the only one of Alexander Ivanovich Herzen’s descendants to fulfill the latter’s dying wish to return to Russia.Емельянова, Анна (2012). "Возвращение Герцена в Россию. РАМТ принял участие в праздновании 200-летия Александра Герцена" [The Return of Herzen to Russia. RAMT Took Part in the Celebration of the 200th Anniversary of Alexander Herzen]. РАМТограф. Газета о Российском академическом Молодёжном театре [RAMTograph. Newspaper about the Russian Academic Youth Theatre] (in Russian). Press Club of RAMT. Archived from the original on 2015-09-27. Retrieved September 26, 2015. Quickly learning Russian (that he did not know),Throughout the rest of his life, P. A. Herzen spoke with a noticeable French accent, sometimes misplacing the stress in words. he enrolled as an auditor in the fifth year of the medical faculty of Moscow University. In December 1898, P. A. Herzen received his Russian diploma as a physician with honors, having passed state examinations for the entire university course. That same year, Peter Alexandrovich began working as an extern physicianIn the Russian Empire (before 1917) — a non-staff physician who worked for free in a hospital or some other institution for the purpose of gaining practical experience.Ефремова, Т. Ф. (2005–2015). "Экстерн" [Extern]. Толковый словарь Ефремовой [Efremova's Explanatory Dictionary] (in Russian). Archived from the original on 2015-10-06. Retrieved October 5, 2015. at the Old Catherine's Hospital under the guidance of the Moscow surgeon and experienced educator I. D. Sarychev, a student of N. V. Sklifosovsky. He worked in this clinic first as an extern physician (until 1900), then as a resident of the surgical department (until 1920) for 22 years (with interruptions for military service as a military surgeon), acquiring vast practical experience and surgical skill here. At the same time as Herzen, talented surgeons such as V. N. Rozanov and V. M. Mints studied and worked at Old Catherine's Hospital. During 1904–1905, in the Russo-Japanese War, as a military surgeon with the Moscow detachment, he spent 14 months on the Manchurian front. In 1909, Herzen defended his second doctoral dissertation Experimental Study on the Effect on the Kidneys of Substances Arising in the Blood during Immunization of Animals with Renal Tissue or Damage to One Kidney, and in 1910 he was elected privatdozent of the faculty surgical clinic of Moscow University, headed by Professor I. K. Spizharny. During World War I, he served as a surgeon in the active army.
After the October Revolution After the October Revolution, Peter Alexandrovich's wife left for Italy with their three children, but he did not follow them. In 1919, P. A. Herzen was elected as the head of the Department of Operative Surgery at the 1st Moscow State University, which became vacant after the departure of Professor F. A. Rein. There, he revised the operative surgery program, basing it on the physiological justification of applied surgical treatment methods. Since 1920, he simultaneously lectured on operative surgery at the 2nd Moscow State University, heading that department from 1920 to 1922. During the Russian Civil War, P. A. Herzen served as a consultant to the 151st military hospital (1920–1921). In 1921, he was elected head of the Department of General Surgery at the 1st Moscow State University, which in 1922 was transferred to the base of the Institute for the Treatment of Tumors (now the Moscow Research Institute of Oncology named after P. A. Herzen). Since that moment, Peter Alexandrovich headed both the department and the institute, remaining its director until 1934. Despite his high position, Herzen personally consulted a large number of outpatients daily at the institute's polyclinic, performed many complex operations, and conducted detailed clinical rounds; he could spend hours working at the microscope, studying blood pictures in patients with systemic diseases of the hematopoietic organs. In 1926, Herzen was first elected chairman of the Moscow Surgical Society, and in 1929 — chairman of the XXI Congress of Russian Surgeons. After the death of Professor A. V. Martynov in 1934, Herzen became head of the Department of Hospital Surgery at the 1st Moscow Medical Institute (now the First Moscow State Medical University), which he led until the end of his life. In 1934, he was awarded the honorary title of Honoured Scientist of the RSFSR, and on January 29, 1939, he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union in the Department of Mathematical and Natural Sciences, specialty "Surgery".
During the Great Patriotic War, P. A. Herzen remained in Moscow throughout, operating on and treating the wounded, and was awarded the Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945".
P. A. Herzen died on January 2, 1947, in Moscow after a serious illness. He is buried at Novodevichy Cemetery, plot No. 4.
Contributions to Russian medicine Peter Alexandrovich Herzen authored about 100 scientific works, including 5 monographs. Among them, particularly significant are the works On the Technique of Cholecystenterostomy (1903), Surgical Treatment of Traumatic Aneurysms (1911), Introduction to the Clinic of Surgical Forms of Cancer (1930), Breast Cancer (1930), and On Hemorrhages (1940). Herzen proposed 16 original methods and modifications of surgical operations, including the operation for forming an artificial presternal esophagus from the small intestine (1907), cholecystectomy, intraperitoneal fixation of the rectum in cases of its prolapse, operations for femoral hernias, anterior cerebral hernias,"Herzen Pyotr Alexandrovich. TubInform. Electronic scientific and practical journal. Access date: September 30, 2015. Archived: October 1, 2015." closure of fistulas of the parotid salivary gland, and others. As a surgeon with a broad scope, Herzen made a substantial contribution to the study and development of problems in the surgical treatment of diseases of the abdominal cavity organs, blood vessels, as well as oncological, urological, and cardiac surgical issues. He gained wide recognition after the publication of his works Skull Fractures in Children, On Suppuration in Typhoid Fever, and On Heart Suture in Its Wounding.
In abdominal surgery At the II Congress of Russian Surgeons in 1901, he reported on his modification of cholecystoenterostomy: after transecting the jejunum, its distal end was connected to the gallbladder, while the proximal end was sutured into the side of the jejunum below the anastomosis, which prevented the development of ascending cholangitis.
In 1913, P. A. Herzen was the first to perform omentorenopexy — a surgical operation consisting of wrapping the lower pole of the kidney with the omentum and suturing it to the renal capsule. This operation is used in ascites caused by portal hypertension.
In his dispute with the advocate of gastroenterostomy in the treatment of peptic ulcer of the stomach, V. V. Uspensky, Herzen argued for the advantages of gastrectomy.
The clinic of hospital surgery at the 1st Moscow Medical Institute, headed by P. A. Herzen, effectively developed issues in the surgical treatment of diseases of the biliary tract. At the 5th Regional Conference of Surgeons of the Moscow Region (1934), reporting on biliary duct surgery, Herzen advocated early cholecystectomy as the operation of choice, abandoning cholecystostomy, of which he had long been a proponent. In his article Surgery of the Biliary Tract, he detailed the pathology of the gallbladder and biliary ducts, thoroughly discussed various types of surgical interventions, and emphasized the need for early cholecystectomy before the development of severe complications. P. A. Herzen supplemented the classification of S. P. Fyodorov (in particular, dividing chronic recurrent cholecystitis into uncomplicated and complicated forms) with dyskinetic forms and proposed the term "initial forms of cholecystitis" instead of diagnoses such as "hydrops of the gallbladder" and "sclerosing cholecystitis".
Herzen spoke at surgical congresses of various levels on numerous occasions, and his reports were devoted to issues of surgical treatment of spleen diseases. In 1924, at the XVI Congress of Russian Surgeons, he delivered a report On the Surgical Treatment of Certain Forms of Splenomegaly; a similar report was made in 1925 at the XXXIV Congress of French Surgeons, and in 1926 at the XVIII Congress of Russian Surgeons (On Spleen Diseases in Connection with Indications for Splenectomy and Its Long-Term Results). In these presentations, he pointed to the hemolytic role of the spleen and its ability to accumulate "blood poisons". In many spleen diseases, the severity of which is determined by dysfunction or hyperfunction of this organ, the patient's condition can be alleviated by its removal. He was the first in the Soviet Union to perform splenectomy for hemorrhagic diathesis.