Petr Diakonov

Born June 2 (14), 1855, in Orel; died Dec. 21, 1908 (Jan. 3, 1909), in Moscow. Russian surgeon.

In 1879, D’iakonov graduated from the St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy. He worked in a zemstvo (district and provincial assembly) hospital until 1883; in 1884–86 he was a municipal health officer in Moscow. In 1893 he became head of the subdepartment of operative surgery and topographical anatomy at Moscow University; later he became a professor (the first professor from among zemstvo physicians). In 1901 he became professor of clinical aspects of pathologic processes in hospital surgery at Moscow University. He studied problems of oncology, of the surgical treatment of cholelithiasis, and of early movement and early rising of bed patients, as well as anesthesis during surgical operations.

D’iakonov was one of the pioneers of asepsis and plastic surgery in Russia. He proposed a number of new surgical techniques, and he improved surgical instruments. He created an important surgical school. Together with N. V. Sklifosovskii in 1891–95 he founded and edited the journal Khirurgicheskaia letopis’ (Surgical Annals). In 1897, with the aid of A. P. Chekhov, he began publication of the journal Khirurgiia (Surgery), of which he was editor until the end of his life. He was an active participant in the Pirogov Conferences of Russian Physicians and one of the organizers of the Conferences of Russian Surgeons. On D’iakonov’s initiative the Surgical Society adopted a resolution on Mar. 21, 1906, protesting against capital punishment, cruelty, torture, and the bloody repressions of the tsarist government.