Surgeon, neurosurgeon, nutritionist, vaccinologist, teacher of the great Pirogov, temple builder and philanthropist Efrem Mukhin almost became the author of international medical terminology in Russian.
But in the late 1820s, in the confrontation between Professor Efrem Osipovich Mukhin and Justus Christian Loder, the German Loder won, and therefore Latin became the medical language of Russia.
Nurse, teacher, head physician
The great doctor, Pirogov's teacher, Efrem Osipovich Mukhin was born in 1766, when women were in power in the country and it seemed that there would be no end to it. It was the fourth year of the reign of the third Empress Catherine II. (Catherine the First does not count).
Mukhin's place of birth is Kharkiv province, Chuguevsky district, the village of Zarozhnoe, which is much more muted. True, his parents were nobles, but the "Chuguev nobleman" does not sound solemn. And for our hero it was very important what and how it sounds.
Mukhin studied at the Kharkov collegium - something between a gymnasium and a seminary, after graduation he worked as a nurse. Then there was the General Hospital at the apartment of Field Marshal Grigory Potemkin-Tavrichesky. Together with the patron I was on the front line and saw enough of everyone.
An inquisitive mind and seriousness of intentions did their job - in 1800, Efrem Osipovich entered the Moscow Golitsyn hospital - as the chief physician. The first scientific work: "On excitations acting on a living human body" brings him the degree of Doctor of Medicine and Surgery.
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From this moment on, the most active period of Ephraim Mukhin's activity begins. The newly-minted doctor takes on everything. He is an adjunct professor at the Medical-Surgical Academy, a teacher of medicine at the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy, senior doctor of the Moscow Orphanage and Chief Doctor of the Moscow Commercial School.
The peak of his career came in 1813, when Mukhin became a professor at the Department of Anatomy, Physiology and Forensic Medicine, and three years later - its dean.
Under Efrem Osipovich, the faculty was reborn. A modern anatomical theater appears, a huge medical library is formed, talented students are sent to the state cattle abroad.
Mukhinsky connections are colossal - he is a member of the Paris, Goettengen and many other scientific societies. He believes that a modern doctor needs to master world experience. In 1815 he finished an unusual work - the first textbook on anatomy, written in Russian.
Mukhin - the first neurosurgeon in Russia
EO Mukhin, "Course of Anatomy". Moscow, Vsevolzhsky Printing House, 1915.
A short list of works where Mukhin uses Russian in medicine is as follows:
"Talking about the benefits of vaccinating with cowpox."
"Discourse on the means and ways to revive the drowned, strangled and suffocated."
"The first principles of bone-setting science" (and in it there are three important parts: "Kostelovie", "Connections" and "Muscle words")
"New experience in translating anatomical expressions into Russian".
"Medical observation of the fifth to ten on the effect of fly agaric on people and the successful treatment thereof."
"About a break in the top of the head, connected to the wound of the brain and its integuments."
All these operations were performed by Dr. Mukhin himself. He was truly an outstanding surgeon, and already in 1807 he confidently performed brain surgery. Which, however, did not prevent to pay tribute to the fly agaric.
What are the operations! He resurrected people, as it seemed to ordinary people:
"On the ways to discover life in the imaginary dead."
There is a known case when Mukhin cured a builder, on whose head a brick fell. While the wound was being treated, it got dark, the operation had to be postponed until the morning. Mukhin only ordered that the ice on the head of the unfortunate be changed constantly and given cranberry juice to drink. And at dawn they started.
Mukhin finished in half an hour - he parted the outer covers, pulled out the fragments of a shattered skull from the skull and stitched up the wound. Five days later, the patient was already able to talk, two weeks later he could walk with a crutch, and a month later he was declared fully recovered.
This half hour went down in history as the first neurosurgical operation in Russia.
He was also engaged in dietetics - he left "notes" about lean food and fish food, as well as "A way to bake bread from a multi-nutrient sprout (Icelandic moss)."
Ephraim Mukhin was also distinguished upstairs: he was presented three times with a diamond ring from the hands of the Emperor Alexander the First, and again from the hands of Empress Maria Feodorovna. Maria Fedorovna presented the doctor with an expensive "pocket" set of surgical instruments. And this is in addition to other orders and the highest favors.
"Kostopravie" instead of "traumatology"
But in the 1820s, a conflict began between two medical luminaries - Professor Mukhin and life-doctor Loder. It began with the fact that Loder sold his anatomical office to Moscow University and, in this regard, achieved the removal of Mukhin from lecturing on anatomy.
A set of surgical instruments. First half of the 19th century.
The blow was serious - it was anatomy that Efrem Osipovich considered the basis of medicine. He wrote: “A doctor cannot perform his office properly without knowing the anatomy. It is a magnetic arrow, showing the correct path to him, which he must follow in his actual exercise in favor of the patient. She is the rudder, directing his action, also the true and solid foundation of all medical science."
Justus Christian and Efrem Osipovich acquired influential like-minded people and both showed outstanding skill in the undercover struggle. As a result, the emperor intervened in the matter and resolved the conflict in favor of the "German party". The course of lectures on anatomy was finally assigned to Loder.
If not for this story, it is not known how the fate of Russian, and after it, of world medicine would have developed. In any case, instead of "traumatology" they would use "bone-setting".
Ten-year-old Pirogov saw a "beneficent wizard" in Mukhin and decided to become a doctor too.
Pirogov recalled: “The desire to imitate was born; wondering at Dr. Mukhin, he began to play the doctor. And when the boy was fourteen, Mukhin advised to send him to the university, until the enthusiasm was not taken aback. As you know, it was a wise decision - Russian surgery is inconceivable without Pirogov. And why Nikolai Ivanovich decided to become a surgeon is obvious.
“Russia owes Mukhin to the Pirogovs,” the historian Mikhail Pogodin later wrote.
And it would not be a bold assumption to assume that gradually Russian terminology would have replaced Latin, first from official medical documents on the territory of the Russian Empire, and then throughout the world. In the nineteenth century, Russia's influence on Europe was very tangible.
Retired practice
In 1835, seventy-year-old Efrem Mukhin left Moscow University. This is an honorable care - the legendary professor retains a lifetime pension in the amount of an annual salary. But, having left teaching and scientific work, Mukhin remains a practicing doctor.
Trinity Church in the village of Fedyaevo, Vyazemsky District, Smolensk Region. The temple was built at the expense of E. O. Mukhin.
Among the regular patients were Count Alexei Orlov-Chesmensky, Georgian Queen Maria Georgievna and many other venerable contemporaries. But even a mere mortal had a chance to be seen by a medical legend.
Mukhin died in 1850 on his own estate in the village of Koltsovo, Kaluga province. The death certificate was issued in Latin and in Russian.
Author: Alexey MITROFANOV