Anton Iakovlevich Krassovskii

Born Mar. 6 (18), 1823, in Slutsk, in present-day Minsk Oblast; died Apr. 1 (13), 1898, in Tsarskoe Selo (now the city of Pushkin). Russian obstetrician-gynecologist.

Krassovskii graduated from the Academy of Medicine and Surgery in St. Petersburg in 1848, where he worked under N. I. Pirogov. In 1858 he became a professor at the same academy. Krassovskii laid the foundation for operative obstetrics and gynecology in Russia. In 1862 he performed the first successful operation in Russia for the removal of an ovary (ovariotomy) and devised an original technique for this operation. In 1868 he was one of the first to remove the uterus (hysterectomy). Anatomical-histological and physiological studies on the female genitalia were carried out under Krassovskii’s direction for the first time. He proposed a classification of the structure of the female pelvis. While director of the St. Petersburg maternity hospital (from 1871), he organized gynecological and isolation departments, which contributed to a sharp drop in the mortality rate among parturient women. He was the organizer (with K. F. Slavianskii) of the St. Petersburg Obstetrical-Gynecological Society (1887) and founder and first editor (1887–93) of Zhurnal akusherstva i zhenskikh boleznei (Journal of Obstetrics and Women’s Diseases). He established a major school of obstetriciangynecologists. Krassovskii was a member of 35 Russian and foreign scientific societies.