Petr Andreevich Minakov

Born Nov. 25 (Dec. 7), 1865, in the village of Deriugino, present-day Dmitriev Raion, Kursk Oblast; died Oct. 5, 1931, in Moscow. Soviet forensic medical scientist.

Minakov graduated from the medical faculty of Moscow University in 1891. In 1900 he assumed the chair of forensic medicine and continued to hold this position after he was made prorector of Moscow University in 1909. In 1911, Minakov retired as a protest against the reactionary policies of the minister of education, L. A. Kasso. He founded and held the chair of forensic medicine at the Moscow Advanced Courses for Women (later the Second Moscow State University).

In 1917, Minakov returned to the chair of forensic medicine at Moscow University, a position which he held until 1931. From 1923 he was chairman of the Moscow State University Anthropological Society. Minakov discovered neutral hematin and its spectrum and was the first to describe subendocardial ecchymoses (”Minakov’s spots”) in the case of death from acute blood loss. He proposed an original method for preserving and embalming corpses.

Minakov wrote a classical study of the significance of hair in forensic medicine and of the comparative structure of hair in humans and some animals.