Filatov, Vladimir Petrovich

Born Feb. 15 (27), 1875, in the village of Mikhailovka, in what is now Penza Oblast; died Oct. 30, 1956, in Odessa. Soviet ophthalmologist and surgeon. Academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1944) and the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1939). Hero of Socialist Labor (1950). Nephew of N. F. Filatov.

Filatov graduated from the medical faculty of Moscow University in 1897. In 1911 he became a professor and head of the sub-department of eye diseases at the medical faculty of the Novorossiia University in Odessa. During the same period, from 1936 to 1950, he was director of the Institute of Experimental Ophthalmology (since 1965, the V. P. Filatov Scientific Research Institute for Eye Diseases and Tissue Therapy in Odessa). In 1917 he contributed to the advancement of plastic surgery by devising the Filatov Pedicle, a tubed pedicle flap.

Filatov gained world recognition for his work on corneal transplants. He developed new methods of a total (1924) and a partial penetrating (1927–38) keratoplasty, for which he developed special instruments. He used preserved cadaver tissues, including corneas (1931), for transplantation. In 1933, Filatov developed a new theory and method of treatment—tissue therapy—on which he based his theory of biogenic stimulants. In 1946 he founded Oftal’mologicheskii zhurnal (Ophthalmological Journal), which he edited.

Filatov received the State Prize of the USSR in 1941 and the E. Metchnikoff Gold Medal of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1951. He was awarded four Orders of Lenin, two other orders, and various medals.