Fedor Inozemtsev

Born Feb. 12 (24), 1802, in the village of Belkino, now in Borovsk Raion, Kaluga Oblast; died Aug. 6 (18), 1869, in Moscow. Russian clinical physician, teacher, and public figure.

Inozemtsev graduated from the department of medicine of the University of Kharkov in 1828 and was admitted to the professors’ institute at the University of Dorpat. He was professor extraordinary in the subdepartment of practical surgery of Moscow University from 1835 and professor ordinary from 1837 to 1859. Inozemtsev established Russia’s first departmental surgical clinic in 1846. He developed the anatomical-physiological trend in medicine, taking a critical view of R. Virchow’s theory of cellular pathology and K. Rokitansky’s humoral concept. He was one of the first to note the exceptional part played by the nervous system, especially the autonomic nervous system, in the development of pathological processes. Inozemtsev was the first in Russia (Feb. 7, 1847) to use ether as an anesthetic in surgery. He proposed a tincture for the treatment of cholera (“Inozemtsev’s drops”).

Inozemtsev organized a polyclinic and used it as a center for the advanced training of physicians. He founded a large medical school whose representatives included I. M. Sechenov, S. P. Botkin, and A. I. Babukhin. Inozemtsev edited and published Moskovskaia meditsinskaia gazeta (Moscow Medical Newspaper, 1858)—a weekly journal for physicians—and established the Society of Russian Physicians in Moscow (1861) whose members were the first to raise the problems of social medicine. Their work reflected the views of Inozemtsev and his students concerning the influence of the environment on the origin of diseases.