Sergei Ilich Kaplun

Born Apr. 27 (May 5), 1897, in the city of Starokonstantinov; died Oct. 22, 1943. Soviet hygienist. Member of the CPSU (1917).

Kaplun graduated from the medical department of Moscow University in 1917. Between 1918 and 1927 he directed work in the People’s Commissariats of Labor of the RSFSR and USSR, with which he developed the first rules and standards for sanitary safety in labor in the history of the USSR. In 1925 (jointly with V. A. Levitskii) he organized the State Labor Protection Institute, of which he was director from 1927 to 1932. In 1924 he was appointed professor and head of the subdepartment of occupational hygiene at the Second Moscow Medical Institute (the first such subdepartment in the USSR). In 1926 he became head of the subdepartment of occupational hygiene at the First Moscow Medical Institute.

Kaplun was the first in the USSR to organize scientific and practical activities in the field of labor sanitation. Under his leadership, rules and directives were established to regulate the provision of compensation for unhealthy working conditions; sections of the Labor Legislation Code dealing with labor sanitation were worked out; and specialized bodies were set up for sanitary, technical, and legal labor inspection. Kaplun was the first industrial-sanitation inspector for the People’s Commissariat of Public Health of the USSR. He had a great influence on the future of the field in the USSR. He was the founder (in 1923) and editor of the journal Gigiena truda (Occupational Hygiene). In 1943 Kaplun volunteered to serve on the front, where he was killed. He was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, Second Class.