Full Text
PYOTR PETROVICH LAZAREV
PYOTR PETROVICH LAZAREV
(1878–1942)
E. V. Shpolsky
In the person of Academician Pyotr Petrovich Lazarev, who died on April 24, 1942, Soviet science suffered a great loss. An outstanding and versatile scientist—a physicist, geophysicist, physiologist, and organizer of tremendous energy and broad scope—Pyotr Petrovich Lazarev played an important role in the organization of Soviet science.
P. P. Lazarev was born in Moscow on April 14, 1878, into the family of a boundary engineer. After graduating from the Second Moscow Gymnasium, P. P. entered the Medical Faculty of Moscow University, from which he graduated in 1901. Already in his student years, alongside a serious interest in physiology, he developed an attraction to the physical and mathematical sciences. His ideal became Helmholtz, who began his career as a physiologist, gradually turned to physics, and ended with brilliant works in the field of hydrodynamics and pure mathematics. P. P. preserved this reverence for Helmholtz throughout his life: a large bust of Helmholtz always stood in his study; in his exemplary scientific library everything written by Helmholtz and about Helmholtz had been collected; finally, being an excellent draftsman, P. P. made many portraits of Helmholtz. Another scientist whose works made an indelible impression on the young P. P. and to a significant degree determined the range of his subsequent work was the brilliant American biologist Jacques Loeb. At the beginning of the 1890s, Loeb’s discoveries created an enormous sensation, showing that certain phenomena specifically characteristic of the living organism and not observed in inanimate nature (growth, reproduction, etc.) can be caused by a definite action of physico-chemical factors and are subject to simple quantitative laws admitting mathematical formulation. Thus one can induce the far-reaching process of division of an unfertilized egg by a simple change in the concentration of ions in the surrounding medium (artificial parthenogenesis); contraction of muscles and nervous excitation are likewise connected with the action of—
ions, and moreover, for minimal irritation there must be a definite quantitative ratio between the concentrations of antagonistically acting ions; finally, the phenomena of phototropism are subject to the photochemical law of Bunsen–Roscoe. These discoveries and, in particular, the quantitative laws of excitation established by Loeb and Nernst, which opened the way for the application of mathematical analysis to the explanation of the most complex vital phenomena, extraordinarily attracted P. P. His interest in the physical and mathematical sciences proved so serious that, two years and a little more after graduating from the Medical Faculty, he simultaneously took the examinations for the academic degree of Doctor of Medicine and the examinations for the entire Faculty of Physics and Mathematics.
After this, having been elected assistant at the Clinic of the Ear, Throat and Nose, P. P. had the opportunity to devote himself to scientific work. Apparently, P. P. never engaged in practical medicine—he felt no inclination toward it; the director of the clinic, taking into account the brilliant scientific abilities of the young assistant and his ardent interest in research work, entrusted to him the management of the most valuable collection of scientific, chiefly acoustic, instruments that the clinic possessed, and with these instruments P. P. carried out his first scientific works. These works were devoted to the physiology of the sense organs—a field which later became one of the chief subjects of investigation for P. P. and his pupils. The first of these works was a study of the influence of phase difference on the perception of sound; the second established an interesting connection between auditory and visual sensations.
The beginning of the 1890s in Moscow was a time of flourishing activity for P. N. Lebedev, both as a scientist and as the founder of a school of physics. Great interest among Moscow physicists was aroused by the weekly physics colloquia, organized by P. N. Lebedev on the European model, at which new works from various fields of physics were reported and discussed. P. P. naturally began attending these colloquia, first as a listener and then as an active participant. At that time he had already decided to move from medicine to physics and, wishing to undergo serious scientific training, in 1903 went abroad to work, to Strasbourg. The trip and the choice of place of work were quite obviously made under the influence of Lebedev, who had himself worked in Strasbourg and highly valued the physical institute there. In Strasbourg P. P. worked with Prof. A. Braun. However, this foreign assignment did not last long, since in 1904 the Russo-Japanese War broke out, and P. P., as a physician, was obliged to return to Russia.
Having returned to Moscow, P. P. did not limit himself to attending P. N. Lebedev’s physics colloquium, but began scientific work in his laboratory. He conducted this work at first as a voluntary trainee, but quickly advanced and became assistant and the closest helper of P. N. Lebedev. The last
immediately noticed P. P.’s talent and highly appreciated it. Work with Lebedev and, in particular, participation in the direction of his laboratory laid the foundation for a close personal friendship between the two scientists, which continued until Lebedev’s death.
In 1907 P. P. overcame one of the most difficult barriers then standing in the way of every young scientist wishing to devote himself to academic work: he passed the so-called “master’s” examinations and became a privat-docent of Moscow University.
In Lebedev’s laboratory, in a very short interval of time, P. P. completed two major works, one of which served as his master’s dissertation, the other as his doctoral dissertation. The master’s dissertation was written on a topic proposed by P. N. Lebedev and was devoted to the study of the temperature jump in heat conduction at the solid–gas boundary. Interest in this question apparently arose in Lebedev in connection with his discovery of a considerable increase in the sensitivity of thermoelements when they were placed in a vacuum. Along with this, investigation of the question of the temperature jump also had great fundamental significance, as a confirmation of the kinetic theory of gases, interest in which had reawakened after a period of oblivion under the influence of Ostwald’s energetic philosophy.
The master’s dissertation was defended in 1911. By this time P. P.’s position in Lebedev’s laboratory had become thoroughly established: he had become not only Lebedev’s closest assistant, but had also been permitted independently to attract collaborators and assign them topics for scientific work. The works set by P. P. reflected his own scientific interests and considerably broadened the range of problems occupying Lebedev’s laboratory. Most of these works were connected with those questions of physico-chemical biology that had attracted P. P. in his everyday life as a medical student and young physician, and that had in fact led him to the study of physics.
Thus, along with the work of the student B. V. Il’in, devoted to Brownian motion, P. P. directed the work of the student V. V. Srebnitsky, who studied the influence of ion concentration on the surface tension of solutions at the boundary with air, while the student P. P. Kandidov, under P. P.’s supervision, studied the influence of electric charge on surface tension at the boundary between ether and water. All these topics from the field of molecular physics and physical chemistry were plainly suggested by the works of Nernst and Loeb and would subsequently be used by P. P. in his ionic theory of excitation.
Approximately at the same time as the beginning of his independent activity at the University, P. P. began teaching at the Moscow Higher Technical School, where from 1908 he was a lecturer, and in 1912 was elected professor in the department of physics.
In 1912 P. P. defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic “The Fading of Dyes and Pigments in the Visible Spectrum.” Under this modest title there was presented a work that contained in itself
important results and broad generalizations. The main task of the work consisted in investigating the laws of the chemical action of light. As a convenient object of investigation P. P. chose colloidal layers of certain dyes (chiefly sensitizers to the red part of the spectrum—cyanin, pinaverdol, pinachrome, and others), which rapidly fade under the action of light. Using simple and exact physical methods for accounting for the amount of decomposed substance and the absorbed energy, P. P. was the first to investigate the relation between the absorbed energy and the rate of the photochemical reaction, the dependence of the reaction rate on wavelength, and the influence of oxygen on the rate of fading. These works, some of which had earlier also been printed in Annalen der Physik and in the British Journal of Photography, made a great impression throughout the world; they undoubtedly belong among the small number of fundamental works in quantum photochemistry.
Along with the investigation of the fading of dyes as a model photochemical reaction, P. P. also considered in his dissertation biological questions connected with the chemical actions of light. In particular, he showed that the fading of visual purple—the pigment that colors the rods of the retina of the eye—obeys the same simple laws that he had established for the case of dye fading. In the same chapter of his dissertation P. P. also points to other biological processes that obey the fundamental laws of photochemistry: the adaptation of organisms to the color of the environment and the so-called photodynamic phenomenon, which is nothing other than photochemical sensitization. This chapter was the germ of a major field created by P. P. and his collaborators in the theory of the sense organs.
The dissertation ended with an outline of a theory of photochemical phenomena. In this theory the quantum laws of the absorption of light could not yet be taken into account. Therefore at the present time it is of only historical interest. However, for its time it represented an undoubted step forward, since it was based on a molecular picture of the mechanism of a photochemical reaction, in general rather close to the modern one.
P. P. could no longer defend his doctoral dissertation at Moscow University (he defended it at Warsaw University), since in 1911 the destruction of Moscow University by the Minister of Public Education Kasso took place, as a result of which a considerable majority of the professors and young scholars left the university. P. N. Lebedev left his laboratory, and P. P. went with him. The university became empty, but a new center appeared, where scholars found refuge who, understanding the full gravity of the consequences connected with leaving the university, nevertheless did not wish to submit to the arbitrariness of the tsarist minister. This center was the Shanyavsky City University—an institution created by a private donation of General Shanyavsky and supported by the city of Moscow. After the destruction of the State University
this institution proved rich in brilliant representatives of science, but it was poor in resources and, above all, in premises and equipment. The physics laboratories were located in two places: in the Golitsyn house on Volkhonka1 and on the semi-basement floor of house No. 20 on Mërtvy (now Ostrovsky) Lane. In the ancient Golitsyn mansion, with its marble staircase adorned with marble sculptures, with a vast hall and house church, there was too little space for an entire university. Suffice it to say that in one small corridor there were housed the laboratories—the physical laboratory, that of experimental zoology—with Prof. Kol’tsov, and that of physical crystallography—with Prof. G. V. Vul’f at its head. The physical laboratory had only two rooms at the bottom, where there were arranged: a practicum, a demonstration room, and several installations for scientific work. The premises on Mërtvy Lane were, it is true, wholly assigned to scientific work, but they consisted of two small apartments, of course entirely unsuited to laboratories. Moreover, the workshop and the library also had to be placed there. In short, the laboratory on Mërtvy Lane was just as cramped and poor as the laboratory on Volkhonka. But despite this poverty of surroundings and the shortage of instruments, all the laboratory workers devoted themselves to the work with the greatest enthusiasm, and creative thought here was in full ferment.
The works that were set up in these laboratories were carried out partly under the direction of P. N. Lebedev himself, partly under the direction of P. P. Among the collaborators of the latter were many young students who, in parallel with their studies at the university, were beginning scientific research work. For this younger generation, to which at that time the students S. I. Vavilov, T. K. Molodyi, E. V. Shpol’skii, P. N. Belikov, S. N. Rzhevkin, and others belonged, physicists of the older generation read special courses, and on Sundays everyone, “from small to great,” from the scientist of world renown such as Lebedev was to the second-year student, gathered for a colloquium, where current problems of physics were heatedly discussed. By tradition the colloquium ended with a “post-colloquium,” i.e. with an entirely unconstrained continuation of the conversation on scientific topics over a mug of beer or over a rasshete in the cheap restaurant “Martynych.” In all this life P. P. played an outstanding role. P. N. Lebedev, who had long suffered from a heart disease that was aggravated as a result of the shock he had experienced in connection with the university drama, almost never left his apartment and appeared comparatively rarely even at the colloquia. His acknowledged deputy was P. P. He directed a large number of scientific works, carried on all the organizational and administrative work of the laboratory, and presided at the colloquia. The confidence that P. N. Lebedev placed in him,
his extensive and varied knowledge, his ability quickly to grasp the essence of a question, and the abundance of original ideas he expressed—all this impressed those around him and created great authority for P. P.
On March 14, 1912, P. N. Lebedev died prematurely at the age of 46, and the administration of the “Lebedev laboratory” by the Council of Shanyavsky City University was entrusted to P. P.
P. P.’s scientific interests at that time were concentrated around problems of photochemistry, molecular physics, and the theory of nervous excitation. In the course of time, the problems of the physiology of the sense organs and the theory of nervous excitation came more and more to the fore. The youthful dreams of creating a mathematical theory of biological processes, inspired by the works of Helmholtz and Loeb, P. P. sought to realize in the physicochemical theory of nervous excitation that he developed, which he called the ionic theory of excitation. At the basis of this theory lies the regularity mentioned above, empirically found by Loeb.
It was Loeb who first established that different ions act antagonistically with respect to the excitation of nerves and muscles. Some of them, for example the ions K and Na, produce excitation, while others—for example the ions Ca and Mg—suppress it. According to Loeb’s law, a minimal stimulus arises under the condition that between the concentrations \(C_1\) and \(C_2\) of antagonist ions there is the simple relation
\[ \frac{C_1}{C_2 + b} = \mathrm{const}. \]
P. P. puts forward this relation as the fundamental law of excitation and makes it the point of departure for his theory. He uses this law not only in the theory of irritation of nerves and muscles, but also in the theory of peripheral vision, i.e. vision at low light intensities, when the active elements of the retina are the rods, which contain visual purple. Already in his doctoral dissertation P. P. showed that this pigment obeys the ordinary laws of photochemistry. Assuming that the products of the photochemical decomposition of visual purple are ions, and using the basic relation between the concentrations of antagonist ions, P. P. mathematically derives the laws of peripheral vision under various conditions (constant illumination, flickering illumination, etc.). In an analogous way he constructs a theory of auditory and gustatory sensations, a theory of muscular contractions, etc. P. P. worked on the development of this theory and its experimental substantiation, on verifying by experiment the consequences following from it, until the end of his life. He attracted a large number of pupils and collaborators to experimental work in this field.
In 1914 the First World War began, and P. P., by the properties of his character, could not remain an indifferent witness to it. With all his extraordinary energy he began to organize assistance
front. The technical backwardness of pre-revolutionary Russia was such that even medical thermometers were not manufactured there, but were imported from abroad. As soon as the acute need of hospitals for thermometers became clear, P. P., with the help of his collaborator (later professor at Saratov University) K. A. Leont’ev, organized a workshop at MVTU for the manufacture of thermometers. The broad use of X-rays for diagnostic purposes was at that time a comparatively new matter. P. P. organized, at the physical laboratory of Shanyavsky University (which in 1913 had moved into a new, specially constructed building), a central X-ray room for Moscow hospitals and a mobile X-ray room in an automobile—for the hospitals of Moscow Province; he gave lectures on roentgenology for physicians and took part in compiling a large manual on roentgenology.
In 1916 Petersburg University elected P. P. professor to take the place of Prof. O. D. Khvol’son, who had retired after long service. However, P. P. declined this proposal and remained in Moscow. At the beginning of 1917 he was elected a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, but at the same time stipulated for himself the condition of remaining in Moscow and, until the Academy itself moved to Moscow, limiting himself to periodic trips to Leningrad.
P. P.’s election to the Academy took place on the eve of the February Revolution. The October Socialist Revolution followed the February Revolution. P. P. understood the full great historical significance of the October Revolution and accepted it without any hesitation. When the motherland, he said, is experiencing such a great event as the Revolution, it is the duty of every honest person to be at his post and to help it with all his strength. And P. P., with all his intense scientific, organizational, and public activity, put these words into practice. Immediately after the October Revolution he offered his assistance to the People’s Commissariat of Health. As a continuation of his former activity in the field of roentgenology, he organized under the People’s Commissariat of Health a Roentgen, Electromedical, and Photobiological Section, which served as the embryo of the future Moscow Roentgen Institute. The authority enjoyed by the roentgen institutions created by P. P. may be seen from the following fact. When, at the beginning of V. I. Lenin’s illness, the doctors found it necessary to subject him to an X-ray examination, this examination was carried out by the X-ray room attached to P. P.’s laboratory in the Institute of Physics and Biophysics.
The Civil War required the organization of an entirely new undertaking at that time: military camouflage. P. P. used his enormous and varied knowledge in the field of physics and the physiology of the sense organs to aid this important work. He organized a camouflage laboratory in which diverse theoretical and purely practical problems connected with paint camouflage, sound camouflage, camouflage, and so forth were solved.
P. P. deserves enormous credit for the creation of the first Soviet scientific research institute in physics. As is well known, before the Revolution Russian science was university science: it developed exclusively in the laboratories of institutions of higher learning, chiefly universities. The defeat inflicted on Moscow University in 1911 brought sharply to the fore the question of the need to create a system of scientific research institutes without teaching functions. Outstanding Russian scientists—P. N. Lebedev, K. A. Timiryazev, and others—appealed in the press to Russian society to find funds for the creation of such institutes. As a result, the “Moscow Society for a Scientific Institute” was founded, with the aim of creating a number of scientific research institutes, first and foremost a physics institute for P. N. Lebedev. Unfortunately, Lebedev did not live to see his dream realized. But the work that had been begun continued with the active participation of P. P. A large donation was obtained for the construction of the physics institute, and in 1915 the institute began to be built on a plot allocated by the Moscow City Public Administration on Miusskaya Square, next to the new building of Shanyavsky University. The Academic Council of the “Society for a Scientific Institute” elected P. P. director of the future institute.
Despite the difficulties connected with wartime, the construction of the institute was completed by the beginning of 1917. On the basis of this institute—which at the beginning of the Revolution was only a building, practically without equipment—P. P. created, under the People’s Commissariat of Health, the Institute of Physics and Biophysics. In terms of the time of its organization, it was the first Soviet scientific research institute of physics. Its scientific and organizing role in the first years of the Revolution was very great. In accordance with the wide-ranging interests of its director, the Institute carried on work in various fields of physics, biophysics, and geophysics. At its colloquia all “physical” Moscow gathered, and all physicists from other cities and abroad who came to Moscow considered it their duty to give a report at the “Miussky Institute.” From within this Institute there emerged a number of scientists who subsequently occupied responsible positions in scientific institutions and in departments of higher educational establishments. Among them were: S. I. Vavilov, V. V. Shuleikin, A. S. Predvoditelev, G. S. Landsberg, S. N. Rzhevkin, P. A. Rebinder, N. T. Fedorov, S. V. Kravkov, P. N. Belikov, B. V. Ilyin, E. V. Shpolsky, V. L. Levshin, A. G. Kalashnikov, and others. In this institute P. P. himself and his collaborators carried out many works that became widely known in the USSR and abroad.
In 1918 P. P. began organizing a new large undertaking, extraordinarily important both scientifically and practically. This was the investigation of the Kursk magnetic anomaly. The history of this investigation is very interesting. In the 1870s, during the first geomagnetic survey of Russia by I. N. Smirnov
It was discovered that there were 2 points in Kursk Province with a sharply expressed magnetic anomaly. During the following 20 years, various researchers carried out unsystematic work on the study of this anomaly, as a result of which the elements of terrestrial magnetism were determined at 150–200 points. Beginning in the nineties, over the next 22 years, Professor E. E. Leist of Moscow University, working alone and without any assistance, carried out a geomagnetic survey at 4500 points in Kursk Province. The work was performed by classical laboratory methods, which gave excessively high accuracy and were extremely inconvenient for use under field conditions. Be that as it may, a gigantic amount of work was accomplished by one person, amid the complete indifference of the government to this matter of great national importance. Leist presented the results of his work in general form, without giving the coordinates of the places where the survey was made, at a colloquium of the Institute of Physics and Biophysics in the spring of 1918. The conclusion to which he came, and which at first was vigorously disputed by geologists, was that the Kursk magnetic anomaly was caused by enormous deposits of iron; moreover, the possible general character of the occurrence and its depth were indicated.
This report was handed over to P. P. for publication; however, without a map or coordinates, and Leist left for treatment (to Germany), to the resort of Nauheim, where he suddenly died in the summer of 1918. In the autumn it became clear that it was impossible to obtain the necessary numerical material for Leist’s work, since this material had remained in Germany. Moreover, some German intermediary, into whose hands Leist’s figures and maps had fallen, offered the Soviet government the opportunity to buy this material from him at an exorbitant price. This offer was rejected by the Government, and P. P. was invited to create, under the Academy of Sciences, a commission for organizing a broad investigation of the Kursk magnetic anomaly. P. P. took up this matter with all his energy and great enthusiasm. A Commission was created with the participation of prominent geologists (Academicians A. D. Arkhangelsky and I. M. Gubkin), magnetologists, astronomers, and geodesists; the most rational methods of investigation were chosen, combining convenience of work under field conditions with sufficient accuracy, and expeditions were organized to carry out the survey on site. It should be remembered that the work began in 1919, at the height of the civil war with the Whites, and therefore it is natural that it proceeded in a tense atmosphere. Here is what P. P. wrote about the beginning of the work: “The execution of the work in 1919 began, owing to the delay in assigning the hydrographers, only in June; on June 17 the detachment arrived in the village of Bely Kolodez, from where, by order of the chairman of the Commission, P. P. Lazarev, the work was to have begun...” It must be noted here that working conditions were [during the summer] extremely unfavorable; in July there were only 11 working days in all, the rest of the time, because of rains and bad roads, it was impossible to work. The general situation also did not facilitate the work. Already
At the very beginning, in the nearest village rumors spread that a detachment had arrived in Ovsyannikovo to restore the power of the landowners, and only the skillful and energetic measures of the head of the detachment, K. S. Yurzhevich, succeeded in securing a conscious and reasonable attitude toward the expedition on the part of the inhabitants. Besides the exceedingly difficult situation, the proximity of the front also greatly hindered calm work. At the very beginning of the expedition the detachment was delayed at the station of Orel, since even military trains were not being allowed through to Kursk. Later, during the work, it was repeatedly necessary to think about evacuation, until finally, on August 16, the head of the detachment had to give the order to evacuate. In Yurzhevich’s journal it is noted: “On August 16 the whole locality was without authority; all the institutions of Tim were evacuated to Karandakovo, Beloe, and Marmyzhi”1. Despite this tense situation, already in the course of the summer of 1919 all the necessary measurements were made at 443 points, and by August 1, 1920, more than 1,600 points had been measured, i.e. more than one third of Leist’s twenty-two years of work had been accomplished. After two or three years the Commission obtained numerical data for more than 10,000 points. In this work they did not confine themselves to magnetic surveying; gravimetric measurements were also made (under the direction of Prof. A. A. Mikhailov). On the basis of all these data, detailed maps of the anomaly region were constructed, the character of the occurrence of the iron was established, and its depth was predicted. As is known, drilling confirmed the predictions, and the iron was indeed found.
The work on the investigation of the Kursk magnetic anomaly was not limited, for P. P., to the organization of this great enterprise. Thanks to his brilliant abilities, he mastered with astonishing speed this field, which was entirely foreign to him. He not only knew excellently all the methods for measuring the elements of terrestrial magnetism, but also mastered the most complex mathematical methods of potential theory, and himself carried out detailed calculations of fields under various hypotheses concerning the form of the underground “iron ridge” crossing Kursk Province. At the same time this work awakened in him an interest in geophysics in general. With his characteristic speed and enthusiasm he immediately set in motion a number of works in geophysics and, as always, served as a “center of attraction” for a number of young workers. Among his collaborators who gained wide renown for their works in the field of geophysics, one should mention first of all Prof. V. V. Shuleikin and Prof. G. A. Gamburtsev.
In his many-sided organizational activity P. P. devoted great attention to scientific literature. In 1918 he founded two journals: one, under the title Archive of the Physical Sciences, was to appear in Russian and French; the other was Advances in the Physical Sciences. The first of these jour—
...ceased to exist after a year for purely technical reasons, but was not subsequently revived. In its place P. P. organized a new journal—Journal of Applied Physics—which appeared for a number of years and was later replaced by the Journal of Technical Physics.
As for Advances in the Physical Sciences, the role and significance of this journal are so well known that there is no need to speak of it. P. P. authored a number of monographs and popular books. Such are the monographs Foundations of the Theory of the Chemical Actions of Light, The Ionic Theory of Excitation (in several editions, and also in French and German translations), The Kursk Magnetic Anomaly; such are the popular books on the theory of relativity, the excellent little book Physics of the Earth, published in a second edition several years before his death; he also wrote a number of biographies of outstanding Russian and foreign scientists—P. N. Lebedev, A. G. Stoletov, N. A. Umov, B. B. Golitsyn, H. Helmholtz.
Until the end of his life P. P. did not abandon teaching in higher education. He also devoted much effort and time to public work. In the difficult years of the Civil War, when the Soviet government, on the initiative of V. I. Lenin, widely undertook measures to improve the living conditions of scientists, P. P. played an outstanding role in the organizations created for this purpose. He was chairman of the Commission for the Improvement of the Living Conditions of Scientific Physicians (KUBUV), a member of the Central Commission for the Improvement of the Living Conditions of Scientists (TsEKUBU), one of the organizers of the Polyclinic for Scientists, the Moscow House of Scientists, and so on.
The number of works and scientific articles published by P. P. is enormous. He considered it necessary to make the results he obtained public as quickly as possible, since, in his opinion, an unpublished result exerts pressure on a scientist’s mind and interferes with his further calm work. In defending his scientific and organizational positions he put great passion into the matter.
Possessing broad scientific interests, an inexhaustible store of ideas, and a lively sociable character, he maintained contact with a large number of Russian and foreign scientists. He left a most valuable archive, in which important materials and interesting correspondence with P. N. Lebedev, I. P. Pavlov, and a number of foreign scientists have been preserved for the future historian of science. Of great value also is his extensive and carefully selected library, in which not only the selection of books is of interest, but also the enormous number of separate offprints, systematized by subject and bound by the skillful hands of P. P. himself.
P. P. died in Alma-Ata, where he had been evacuated with his laboratory by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In the last years of his life he suffered from an incurable illness (diabetes mellitus), requiring the strictest regimen, which he did not carry out altogether irreproachably. During the evacuation, in connection with his worsening state of health, he was
An X-ray was taken, revealing an even more serious illness—stomach cancer in an inoperable stage. As a physician, P. P. demanded that the image be shown to him and, shaken by the fatal diagnosis, died of a stroke on the night of April 23–24, 1942, at the age of 64, far from having exhausted the rich possibilities granted to him by nature.
In this brief sketch there is no possibility of giving a full characterization of the vivid personality of P. P. It is the task of a future historian of science to examine the scientific legacy he left behind and all his multifaceted activity. One thing is beyond doubt: through his scientific works and organizational activity, and through the great school of scholars he created, Pyotr Petrovich Lazarev left an indelible mark on the history of Russian science. It remains for us, his contemporaries and pupils, to bow with deep respect before his memory—as that of a scientist of brilliant gifts and a man of great temperament.