N. A. Ananyev

A. P. Dobroslavin¹

From the I. P. Pavlov Ryazan Medical Institute

One of the founders of Russian hygienic science was Professor A. P. Dobroslavin, the foremost Russian hygienist of the second half of the nineteenth century.

A. P. Dobroslavin established the first independent school of hygiene in Russia and enriched the field with valuable theoretical and practical discoveries. Professor A. P. Dobroslavin holds a leading place in the history of Russian hygienic science. His original scientific views on hygiene reflect the course of the discipline’s development in Russia.

Having critically studied the achievements of hygiene and preventive medicine in his day, A. P. Dobroslavin approached many questions of hygiene in a new way, and his research was far ahead of that of Western European hygienists.

Aleksei Petrovich Dobroslavin was born on September 29, 1842, in the village of Dyadkovo, Oryol Province, into a physician’s family. In 1859, after completing gymnasium, he was admitted as a student to the St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy.

A. P. Dobroslavin’s years of study at the academy coincided with the rise of the revolutionary liberation movement of the 1860s and the fierce ideological and philosophical struggle then taking place in Russia. Progressive social ideas and contacts with forward-thinking students undoubtedly had a beneficial influence on the formation of young Dobroslavin’s scientific views. In 1865 he completed his studies at the academy, graduating with a silver medal, and the following year he passed the examinations for the degree of Doctor of Medicine. On the advice of the renowned Russian chemist N. N. Zimin and other progressive professors at the academy, he began to devote himself intensively to the study of hygiene, and as early as 1871 he delivered an introductory lecture for the hygiene course. In this exceptionally substantive lecture, the young scientist painted a vivid picture of the historical development of hygiene and, from his own standpoint, defined the nature of hygienic problems and the methods for studying them.

The establishment of an independent chair of hygiene at the Military Medical Academy was a landmark in the history of higher medical education and medical science in Russia. A. P. Dobroslavin’s role and contribution in this achievement were considerable. At the time, there were no specialized chairs of hygiene in Western Europe, since bourgeois medical scientists did not regard hygiene as an independent science. A. P. Dobroslavin’s boundless energy and tireless struggle for his ideas did much to ensure that hygiene took its place on an equal footing with other medical disciplines in Russia earlier than it did at renowned universities abroad.

The essence of the scientific definition of hygiene advanced and substantiated by A. P. Dobroslavin was that he closely linked hygienic problems with the task of improving conditions of work and daily life. He maintained that the effectiveness of hygienic measures depended on socioeconomic living conditions. A. P. Dobroslavin consistently emphasized the great importance of the influence of social factors on heal—

¹ N. A. Ananyev’s article is published to raise the question of the need for a comprehensive study of the life and work of A. P. Dobroslavin. A biography of this prominent Russian hygienist, based on documentary sources, has long been needed. — Ed.

…people’s health. Hygienic measures can be put into practice only when they are consistent with the conditions of social life. A. P. Dobroslavin viewed labor and health, the organism and its environment, as interconnected.

A. P. Dobroslavin saw the principal task of public health and hygiene as studying the laws of “...a stable physiological equilibrium in the organism under various conditions of social activity”¹ and creating the sanitary and hygienic conditions necessary for all human creative powers to flourish. “If the subject of physiology,” he said, “is the laws of the statics and dynamics of the living body, then the subject of hygiene is the influence of all external agents on the organism.”² In defining the subject of hygiene, he emphasized its active role in improving the environment. This was a new approach to the nature of hygiene, unfamiliar to Western European scholars, who regarded it as a descriptive, ineffectual, and passive science. A. P. Dobroslavin linked hygiene inseparably with the pressing practical issues of public health and defended the unity of hygiene and sanitation. He also repeatedly spoke out against “pure science.”

The importance of A. P. Dobroslavin as a scholar of hygiene becomes especially clear from a study of his works. His scientific output was rich and varied. In hygiene alone, he wrote more than 100 scholarly works. Scientific integrity, profundity of thought, and clarity of exposition are distinctive features of A. P. Dobroslavin’s creative work.

An advanced materialist scientist, he addressed a wide variety of problems in the science of hygiene and sanitary practice. A. P. Dobroslavin did not approach questions of hygiene narrowly, solely from the standpoint of the specific concerns of that science. He regarded hygiene as an integral part of natural science. He maintained that the advancement of medicine must be grounded in the methods of scientific investigation.

A. P. Dobroslavin valued experimentation in science and resolutely opposed narrow empiricism and attempts to turn hygiene into a collection of practical prescriptions. His laboratory was directly connected with practical public health work. Valuable studies on the physiology of nutrition were carried out there. A. P. Dobroslavin’s research on problems of nutritional hygiene and metabolism was especially fruitful. In studying the properties and composition of Russian rye flour, he developed a method for determining its starch content that was more accurate than those of foreign authors. A number of his works were devoted to the study of the nutrients in meat, the properties of its various grades, and the importance of meat and other foodstuffs in the population’s diet. Among A. P. Dobroslavin’s major achievements was the creation of his hygiene manuals: An Outline of the Foundations of Sanitary Work (1874), Hygiene: A Course in Public Health (1882–1884), and A Course in Military Hygiene (1885–1887). In his hygiene manual, A. P. Dobroslavin assembled an enormous body of material and, drawing on experimental data, presented every branch of this medical discipline. The textbook offers a scientific treatment, grounded in extensive factual material, of the complex questions and patterns of population change that have great social significance. In his hygiene course, A. P. Dobroslavin shows that the mistaken approach taken by foreign statisticians and certain Russian scholars to questions of population change in Russia leads to distorted notions of the vitality of its people. Comparing tables compiled by various authors on average life expectancy

¹ A. P. Dobroslavin, A Course in Hygiene, 1882, St. Petersburg, p. 16.
² Ibid., p. 13.

and the distribution of the population by age, A. P. Dobroslavin convincingly demonstrates that all indicators of population change in Russia testify to its enormous potential for growth.

The publication of An Outline of the Foundations of Sanitary Work was motivated to a considerable extent by the scholar’s desire to help zemstvo physicians in their medical and sanitary work in the countryside. This aspect of A. P. Dobroslavin’s scientific and practical activity always occupied a prominent place. Military hygiene, too, owes much to his wide-ranging work. His Course of Military Hygiene is an original manual that represents a substantial contribution to the development of Russian military hygiene. In it, Dobroslavin offers a thorough and substantive exposition of the importance of statistics, the foundations of its general theory, and the scientific methodology of statistical research as applied to military hygiene. He emphasized that his aim was not to expound the clinical aspects of particular diseases. The task of military hygiene, he believed, was to identify the factors that promote or impede the development of disease in wartime and peacetime, with a view to prevention. From this standpoint, he also addressed the problem of combating infectious diseases. Drawing on the works of N. I. Pirogov, he examined the organizational questions of military medicine in his day. He trained military physicians to approach their duties conscientiously, instilled in them a love of hygiene, and developed their skills in scientific thinking and laboratory research methods. He taught military hygiene with due regard for the practical work of the military physician. From 1884, A. P. Dobroslavin was a member of the Military Medical Scientific Committee.

A remarkable feature of A. P. Dobroslavin’s scientific work was his devotion to Russian science and his high regard for its achievements. His course of hygiene was based to a considerable extent on the results of research by Russian hygienists.

In the sections of the textbook devoted to the hygiene of air, water, lighting, temperature, ventilation, and other subjects, the author draws on data obtained by Yakobiy, Veselovsky, Kovalkovsky, Pavlovsky, Sokolov, Prokhorov, Uspensky, Yakovlev, and other Russian hygienists. This clearly demonstrates his ability to appreciate the achievements of scientific thought in his country.

The historical medical literature has paid almost no attention to A. P. Dobroslavin’s role in the development of Russian school hygiene and the protection of children’s health. Yet it was he who, at that time, consistently investigated the most important problems of school hygiene and did much to help resolve them properly. Under his leadership, schemes for describing the sanitary and hygienic condition of public schools were reviewed and approved, and a hygienic regimen for those schools and a standard plan for the construction of a rural school were developed. In his deeply substantive article “Overwork among Schoolchildren and Its Consequences,” A. P. Dobroslavin advanced progressive ideas in the field of school hygiene.¹ He argued that many illnesses among schoolchildren could be successfully combated if a sound system of instruction were established that did not overburden pupils with mental work and, in particular, if physical exercises were introduced. Dobroslavin’s treatment of school hygiene not only fully reflected the state of science at the time but has also retained its significance to this day.

A. P. Dobroslavin’s scientific views and theoretical generalizations gave impetus to the further progress of Russian hygiene along

¹ Vestnik Evropy, 1888, no. 8.

...an independent path. A. P. Dobroslavin was a spontaneous materialist. He stated clearly and unequivocally that “the natural sciences, and physiology in particular, have demonstrated the absence of any ‘vital force’ by which the idealists sought to explain all living things.”¹ All vital processes take place according to laws common to the whole of nature. He educated his students in the spirit of a materialist outlook grounded in natural science, adhered firmly to it in his own research, and fought tirelessly against unscientific theories in hygiene. Ahead of his Western medical contemporaries, A. P. Dobroslavin advanced the bold scientific proposition that general pathology was important to medicine as a link between it and the natural sciences. He insisted on the major role of general pathology in the development of medicine and argued that medicine needed to be given an experimental and physiological direction. A. P. Dobroslavin’s arguments played an important role: by a resolution of the conference of the Military Medical Academy, an independent department of experimental pathology was established.

From 1871 onward, A. P. Dobroslavin took a highly active part in organizing zemstvo and municipal medical institutions and in providing a scientific basis for addressing sanitary problems associated with improving health conditions in St. Petersburg. The principal questions concerning the city’s health and sanitation—water supply, the provision of wholesome milk to the population, the organization of anti-epidemic measures, and so on—were addressed in constant consultation with this outstanding hygienist. As a result of his persistent efforts, he secured the opening of a temporary sanitary and food inspection station at the academy’s hygiene laboratory. The zemstvo of St. Petersburg Province owed much to the scientist. At congresses of zemstvo physicians of St. Petersburg Province in 1877–1888, questions concerning the health of the people and the state of zemstvo medicine were discussed under A. P. Dobroslavin’s leadership. At several congresses of Russian natural scientists and physicians, and at physicians’ congresses held in memory of N. I. Pirogov, A. P. Dobroslavin chaired the hygiene section. He took an active part in the work of S. P. Botkin’s well-known commission, established to study how to improve sanitary living conditions and reduce mortality in Russia. In 1874, A. P. Dobroslavin founded and edited the hygiene journal Health, which covered public health and pressing problems of hygiene and health improvement. The journal devoted considerable space to military hygiene. Its scientific approach to the hygiene and sanitation questions it raised was combined with a popular style accessible to broad sections of the population. A. P. Dobroslavin published a number of substantial articles in the journal, including “Water and the Effect of Its Quantity and Quality on Health” (1874), “On Improving the Health of Cities” (1875), and “What to Do about Typhus” (1879). A. P. Dobroslavin’s article “On the Relationship of Hygiene to Natural Science,” published in Health in 1880, is particularly noteworthy. Defending the view that hygiene was intrinsically linked to natural science, he called for still more effective forms and methods for developing this connection.

A. P. Dobroslavin’s name is inseparably associated with the work of the Russian Society for the Protection of Public Health, established to promote improvements in public health and sanitary conditions in Russia. A. P. Dobroslavin was among the society’s earliest proponents and founders. He loved the Russian people and sought to improve their living conditions. He was especially concerned about the nutrition of the working class. At meetings of the society, he repeatedly argued for the importance of developing a scientific basis for workers’ nutrition and implementing concrete measures to that end.

¹ A. P. Dobroslavin, A Course in Hygiene, St. Petersburg, 1882, part I, p. 6.

Aleksei Petrovich Dobroslavin enjoyed the deep respect and affection of all who knew him. His open, direct character, love of people, ability to draw them into collective work, and inexhaustible energy—all attracted physicians specializing in hygiene and workers in public sanitation to A. P. Dobroslavin.

On December 4, 1889, A. P. Dobroslavin died in the prime of his life and creative powers. His name has entered the history of Russian medicine for all time. A. P. Dobroslavin devoted his entire creative career to establishing a scientific school of Russian hygienists, and he may rightly be considered the founder of a distinctive school of hygiene in Russia. His determination to overcome the limitations and one-sidedness of the analytical, narrowly sanitary-engineering approach of Western European hygiene is perhaps more clearly expressed in his work than in that of any other prerevolutionary hygienist.

It is entirely mistaken to regard A. P. Dobroslavin as the “founder of the sanitary-engineering approach” in Russian hygiene, as Professor S. V. Moiseev and others have done. A. P. Dobroslavin did not elevate any specialized method—for example, statistics or physicochemical investigation—into the principal method of hygiene, and he emphasized that hygiene “draws especially heavily on physiology.”¹ At the time, hygiene had not yet developed sufficiently for the question of its differentiation into specialized branches to arise. Nevertheless, in his Course of Hygiene, A. P. Dobroslavin gave clear and thorough treatment to areas of general hygiene that subsequently became independent subjects of teaching and research, including military hygiene and school hygiene. His social and preventive approach to hygiene, his definition of its tasks in response to the practical needs of public health protection, and his emphasis on its active role in changing environmental conditions convincingly demonstrate that his fundamental views have stood the test of time. His exceptionally precise research on the physiology and hygiene of nutrition and on metabolism remains significant today.

After the Great October Socialist Revolution, Soviet hygiene entered a new and higher stage of development. Having absorbed all that was best in the achievements of hygiene in prerevolutionary Russia, progressive Soviet hygienic science is developing on the basis of Marxist-Leninist theory and in accordance with Pavlovian physiological doctrine. In this development, the scientific legacy of A. P. Dobroslavin, many of whose works speak directly to the problems of contemporary Soviet hygiene, must take its rightful place.

1. A. P. Dobroslavin, Course of Hygiene, 1882, St. Petersburg, Part I, p. 13. ↩