Department of Pharmacology at the Imperial Medical and Surgical Academy: The first 100 years (1798–1898)

Abstract

This article discusses the history of the creation and development of the Department of Pharmacology of the Medico-Surgical (since 1881 Military Medical) Academy for the first 100 years of its existence. The department was created in 1798 as one of the first seven departments of the academy. It taught materia medica, or medicinal substance, which then combined pharmacy, pharmacognosy, and pharmacology. The period was marked by the appearance of the first textbook on pharmacology (A.P. Nelyubin, 1827), opening of the laboratory of experimental pharmacology (O.V. Zabelin, 1868), beginning of a critical revision of the main drugs included in the state pharmacopoeia of that time, based on their experimental studies (P.P. Sushchinsky, 18761889), a detailed description of the principle of conditioned reflexes for studying digestive secretions (I.P. Pavlov, 18951897), and other significant scientific and pedagogical events. In the 19th century, the conceptual apparatus of pharmacology, its scientific methodology, was formed, which was most clearly established at the beginning of the 20th century through the efforts of N.P. Kravkov, S.V. Anichkov, and their scientific followers. However, the works performed at the Department of Pharmacology in the 19th century were not analyzed in detail by anyone; for the most part, they only mentioned the personalities of the people who headed it and their specific, primarily pedagogical successes. This article is intended to fill this gap.