Outstanding toxicologist: professor Nikolay Vasilyevich Savateev (100th birth anniversary)

Abstract

The main stages of labor, scientific, pedagogical, and social activities of a participant in the Great Patriotic War, laureate of the State Prize of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, honored worker of the higher school of the Russian Federation, doctor of medical sciences, professor, major general of the medical service, Nikolai Vasilyevich Savateeva, are considered. Biographical materials are presented on the formation of N.V. Savateev as an outstanding scientist and teacher, founder of the Department of Toxicology and Medical Protection at the S.M. Kirov Military Medical Academy. Main areas of scientific research personally carried out by Nikolai Vasilyevich, as well as groups that he led for many years, are covered. His interests included fundamental studies of the role of acetylcholine in the higher nervous activity function, mechanisms of toxic action of organophosphorus compounds and other neurotoxicants, and the search for antidote therapy for these compound poisoning. In 1967, he was awarded a State Prize of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for developing and creating antidotes for organophosphorus toxic substances. Nikolai Vasilievich made a significant contribution to the military toxicology and medical protection formation as a training discipline and branch of military medical science. He was one of the first scientists worldwide to begin the study of biomedical consequences of chemical accidents and problems of environmental toxicology. In subsequent years, Nikolai Vasilievich was one of the initiators to develop the disaster medicine problem. The most important place in the activities of N.V. Savateev was occupied by training scientific and pedagogical personnel, who continued the work of their teacher; many of them became well-known toxicologists in our country and abroad.