Surgeon-innovator and physician-humanist ahead of his time (to the 145th anniversary of the birth of academician A.V. Vishnevsky)

Abstract

The main scientific and practical activities of A.V. Vishnevsky took place in Kazan and Moscow. This paper presents little-known facts from the creative life of A.V. Vishnevsky, with a focus on his contribution to the development of local anesthesia and novocaine blockade in our country. Vishnevsky graduated from the Astrakhan gymnasium in 1894 and from the Kazan University in 1899. From 1899 to 1912, he was an assistant dissector at the departments of normal anatomy, topographic anatomy, and operative surgery of Kazan University. During the First World War, he mostly performed surgery to wounded individuals with gunshot injuries that involved peripheral nerves, producing neurolysis or suturing of the nerves. To treat brain abscesses, he used oil-balsamic drainage, which gave better results than other therapeutic methods. From 1914 to 1934, he managed first the hospital and then the faculty surgical clinics in Kazan. With the emerging problems in surgery, he paid much attention to neurosurgery, local analgesia, suppurative processes, nervous tropism, and gunshot wounds. His original theoretical works were devoted to neural trophy. His proposed methods of nerve block, in particular, pericardial novocainic and vago-sympathetic blockages, were widely accepted. As regards his contribution to the field of military surgery, he promoted proper surgical treatment of wounds, justified secondary treatment of wounds, and suggested methods to combat traumatic shock, secondary bleeding, etc. In 1947, A.V. Vishnevsky was appointed as the Director of the Institute of Surgery of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences in Moscow. He was the founder of the great national school of surgeons.