Borovskii, Petr Fokich

Born May 27 (June 8), 1863, in the borough of Pogar, Starodub District, Chernigov Province; died Dec. 15, 1932, in Tashkent. Soviet surgeon and parasitologist.

Borovskii graduated from the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg (1887). From 1892 he worked in the Tashkent Military Hospital. In 1898 he described the causative agent of cutaneous leishmaniasis and established its protozoal nature (rather than bacterial, as was earlier believed), which made possible elaboration of the problems of epidemology, treatment, and prophylaxis of this disease. He proposed a new modification of sutures of the urinary bladder. Borovskii was one of the organizers of public health in the Uzbek SSR and a professor at the Turkestan University at Tashkent (from 1920). In 1927 the government of the Uzbek SSR conferred the title of Hero of Labor on Borovskii. He was also awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.