Ivan Petrovich Razenkov

Born Nov. 14 (26), 1888, in the village of Kadykovka, Simbirsk Province; died Nov. 14, 1954, in Moscow. Soviet physiologist. Academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1944). Honored Scientist of the RSFSR (1940). Student of I. P. Pavlov.

Razenkov graduated from the University of Kazan in 1914. Beginning in 1931 he was a professor at a number of higher educational institutions in Moscow. In 1934 he became director of the Moscow branch of the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine; he was later deputy director of the institute’s scientific section and head of its department of human physiology. From 1944 to 1954, Razenkov worked at the Institute of Physiology of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR; he served as the institute’s director from 1944 to 1949. From 1948 to 1950 he was vice-president of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR.

Razenkov’s chief works dealt with the physiology of higher nervous activity (he established the phenomenon of phase states in the functioning of the cerebral cortex) and with the physiology and pathology of digestion. He studied the role of the functional state of the digestive glands in their secretory activity and the regulatory mechanisms of the digestive glands’ excretory function; he also studied the relationship between digestive glands and metabolic processes.

Razenkov was awarded the I. P. Pavlov Gold Medal (1952) and the State Prize of the USSR (1947). He also received two Orders of Lenin and a medal.