Kozhevnikov, Aleksei

Born Mar. 5 (17), 1836, in Riazan’; died Jan. 10 (23), 1902, in Moscow. Russian neuropathologist.

Kozhevnikov graduated from the department of medicine of Moscow University in 1858. He was the organizer (1869) and director of Russia’s first subdepartment and clinic of neurological diseases, the establishment of which was a beginning for the development of neuropathology as an independent medical discipline in Russian medical science. He served simultaneously (1870–74) as chairman of the subdepartment of special pathology and therapeutics of Moscow University. He became a professor in 1873. His principal works dealt with the morphology and physiology of the nervous system and research on the localization of the “higher cortical vasomotor centers.” He studied speech disorders (aphasia), described in 1894 a peculiar form of cortical epilepsy (Kozhevnikov’s epilepsy), reported a previously unknown disease (familial spastic progressive diplegia), and established in 1885 the presence of cerebrocortical lesions in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Kozhevnikov wrote the first Russian textbook on neuropathology.

He founded a school of neuropathologists and psychiatrists, among whom were S. S. Korsakov, V. K. Rot, V. A. Muratov, G. I. Rossolimo, L. O. Darkshevich, and L. S. Minor. He was the organizer in 1890 of the Moscow Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists. He was an honorary member of many Russian and foreign societies and one of the founders of the Pirogov Society of Physicians.