Professor Anatoly Alekseevich Kurygin (1932–2011) (to the 90th anniversary of the birth)

Abstract

Anatoly Alekseevich Kurygin was born on September 10, 1932 in the village of Zaborye, Solotchinsky District (now Ryazansky District), Ryazan Region, into a peasant family. In 1950, Anatoly Kurygin graduated from the Solotchinsk complete secondary school with excellent and good marks and applied for admission to the Ryazan Medical Institute. A. Kurygin decided to become a surgeon already at the beginning of his studies at the Institute and persistently went to achieve this goal. After graduating from the 4th year, Anatoly Alekseevich, along with other most successful students, received an offer to continue the study at the Military Medical Faculty at the Kuibyshev Medical Institute named after D. I. Ulyanov, agreed and joined the ranks of the Soviet Army. In July 1956, having received a diploma with honors, lieutenant of the medical service A. A. Kurygin, together with his wife Lyudmila Nikiforovna, departed for the Belarusian Military District. In April 1961, having got the highest grades (five) in the entrance exams, Anatoly Alekseevich was enrolled in the postgraduate course at the Department of Faculty Surgery named after S. P. Fedorov. As a dissertation research, Anatoly Alekseevich was instructed to study the state of lavsan prostheses and a new vascular bed at different times after arterial alloplasty. Soon after defending his dissertation, V. M. Sitenko suggested Anatoly Alekseevich to take up the issue of chronic pancreatitis, which was little studied at that time. During the year, A. A. Kurygin studied the literature on this topic and came to the convincing conclusion that it was impossible as a doctoral dissertation. Anatoly Alekseevich reported his thoughts to the head of the department, substantiated the futility of this topic and expressed a desire to study the physiological and surgical aspects of vagotomy as a new and alternative method of gastric resection for the treatment of chronic duodenal ulcers and its complications. In June 1978, the deputy head of the department, associate professor A. A. Kurygin, successfully defended the first doctoral dissertation in the USSR on the treatment of duodenal ulcers by vagotomy in combination with pyloroplasty. Five years later, in November 1987, professors of the Military Medical Academy V. M. Sitenko, A. A. Kurygin and A. I. Nechay, as part of a group of surgeons from Moscow, Kyiv and Tallinn, were awarded the title of Laureate of the USSR State Prize «For the development and implementation of new methods of treatment of peptic ulcer». In 1985, Professor A. A. Kurygin was appointed head of the Department of Surgery № 2 (for advanced medical training) of the Military Medical Academy. Anatoly Alekseevich was the author and co-author of more than 300 scientific papers, including 39 monographs and manuals, more than 25 teaching aids, 14 inventions, as well as the editor of the Abdominal Surgery section of the Small Medical Encyclopedia. Also, A.A. Kurygin published three collections of poetry. On November 12, 2011, after a severe and prolonged illness, the doctor Anatoly Alekseevich Kurygin was no longer with us. Major-General of the Medical Service A. A. Kurygin was buried on November 15 at the Serafimovsky cemetery in St. Petersburg.