Vasilii Ilich Grebenshchikov

Born 1857; died 1906. Russian physician, scientist, and worker in the field of medical and demographic statistics.

After graduating from the Military Medical Academy, Grebenshchikov worked in the Department of Medicine (1884–1904); in 1904 he became director of the statistics section of the Petersburg City Council and professor of demographic statistics at the Advanced Statistics Courses. While working in the Department of Medicine, Grebenshchikov reorganized the method of filing official medical statistics. He integrated all collected accountable data into annual summary surveys called the “Accounts of the Department of Medicine” (1888–1901), which was later renamed “Accounts of the State of National Health and the Organization of Medical Assistance in Russia” (1902–14). Grebenshchikov was the author of major medicodemographic monographs. Drawing on data from the census of 12 provinces (1897), which were published in 1901, Grebenshchikov compiled the first mortality and life expectancy tables in Russia for the entire population (and not only for the Orthodox, as had previously been the case)—a complete summary table for all 12 provinces and abridged summary tables for each province.