Zavarzin, Aleksei

Born Mar. 13 (25), 1886, in St. Petersburg; died July 25, 1945, in Leningrad. Soviet histologist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1943) and the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1944).

Zavarzin graduated from St. Petersburg University in 1907 and then worked there. In 1916 he became a professor in the subdepartment of histology and embryology of the Perm’ Di-vision of St. Petersburg University. He held the same position at the Academy of Military Medicine from 1922 to 1936. From 1936 he was chairman of subdepartments and head of laboratories in a number of schools and research organizations in Leningrad. In 1932 he organized the general morphology section of the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine and directed it until his death. He became director of the Institute of Cytology, Histology, and Embryology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1944. His main works dealt with the comparative histology of the nervous system, blood, and connective tissue and the development of connective tissue under conditions of experimental aseptic inflammation in worms, arthropods, mollusks, and chordates. Zavarzin advanced the theory of parallelisms according to which tissues performing similar functions in animals of different phyla exhibit similar structural features and parallel evolutionary trends. Zavarzin was one of the pioneers in evolutionary histology. He established the school of Soviet histologists and organized the Leningrad Society of Anatomists, Histologists, and Embryologists. He received the State Prize of the USSR in 1942 and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.