Ivan Tarkhanov

(also I. R. Tarkhnishvili, I. R. Tarkhan-Mouravi). Born June 3 (15), 1846, in Tbilisi; died Aug. 24 (Sept. 6), 1908, in St. Petersburg. Russian physiologist.

Tarkhanov studied at the University of St. Petersburg in 1863–64, and in 1869 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy. He studied under F. V. Ovsiannikov and I. M. Sechenov. From 1875 to 1895 he taught at the Medical and Surgical Academy, where he was made a professor in 1877. From 1895 to 1901 he was a privatdocent at the University of St. Petersburg.

Tarkhanov did research in various areas of physiology: central nervous system functions, including the phenomena of sleep and hypnosis; secretion; and the influence of environment on an organism. He was also interested in questions of social medicine. Tarkhanov was one of the first to detect the effect of X rays on living things. He also discovered the galvanic skin response and various other phenomena.

Tarkhanov was a member of several Russian medical societies, a Russian society of naturalists, and the Leopoldina Academy in Halle. He was also a corresponding member of the Paris Biological Society.