IN MEMORY OF ALEXANDER PAVLOVICH AVTSYN

Abstract

The article is devoted to the life and professional activities of the outstanding Soviet scientist-pathologist, academician of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, laureate of the State Prize, prizes named after I.V. Davydovsky, I.I. Mechnikov and the Moscow Society of Nature Testers, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor Alexander Pavlovich Avtsyn (13.09.1908–20.04.1993), born in Moscow into the family of an engineer and inventor. The working life of Alexander Pavlovich began at the age of 15, working in children’s neuropsychiatric hospitals, while simultaneously studying at a Moscow secondary school, from which he graduated in 1925 As a 3rd year student and continuing to work in pathoanatomical laboratories, he became interested in scientific activities and in 1933, after successfully graduating from the 1st Moscow Medical Institute named after I.M. Sechenov, he got a job at the Institute of Neuropsychiatric Prevention of the People’s Commissariat of Health of the RSFSR as a researcher under the guidance of Prof. P.E. Snesarev, where began studying the histopathology of the nervous system. In 1936, he defended his PhD dissertation, and in 1954, based on the collected material during the Great Patriotic War, defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic “Pathological anatomy of typhus”. His scientific interests were issues of military and geographical pathology, pathological anatomy of infectious diseases, and cytopathology. He was distinguished by such traits as intelligence, charm, wit, the highest professionalism, a brilliant lecturer, and a polemicist. From 1961 to 1988, Alexander Pavlovich was the founder and first director of the Institute of Human Morphology, in whose post he founded and developed such scientific directions as geographical pathology and cytopharmacology, and from 1988 to 1993, he was an honorary adviser to the director of this institute. A.P. Avtsyn wrote more than 250 scientific papers, including monographs and chapters in manuals. A.P. Avtsyn died at the 85th year of his life from acute coronary insufficiency. He was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery in Moscow. This and everything else is described in the presented article.