The future great doctor was born on November 27, 1810 in Moscow. His father Ivan Ivanovich Pirogov served as treasurer. He had fourteen children, most of whom died in infancy. Of the six survivors, Nikolai was the youngest.

He was helped to get an education by a family acquaintance - a famous Moscow doctor, professor at Moscow University E. Mukhin, who noticed the boy’s abilities and began to work with him individually. And already at the age of fourteen, Nikolai entered the medical faculty of Moscow University, for which he had to add two years to himself, but he passed the exams no worse than his older comrades. Pirogov studied easily. In addition, he had to constantly work part-time to help his family. Finally, Pirogov managed to get a position as a dissector in the anatomical theater. This work gave him invaluable experience and convinced him that he should become a surgeon.

Having graduated from the university one of the first in academic performance, Pirogov went to prepare for professorship at one of the best at that time in Russia, Yuryev University in the city of Tartu. Here, in the surgical clinic, Pirogov worked for five years, brilliantly defended his doctoral dissertation, and at the age of twenty-six became a professor of surgery. In his dissertation, he was the first to study and describe the location of the abdominal aorta in humans, circulatory disorders during its ligation, circulatory pathways in case of its obstruction, and explained the causes of postoperative complications. After five years in Dorpat, Pirogov went to Berlin to study; the famous surgeons, to whom he went with his head bowed respectfully, read his dissertation, hastily translated into German. He found the teacher who more than others combined everything that he was looking for in a surgeon Pirogov not in Berlin, but in Göttingen, in the person of Professor Langenbeck. The Gottingen professor taught him the purity of surgical techniques.

Returning home, Pirogov became seriously ill and was forced to stop in Riga. As soon as Pirogov got out of his hospital bed, he began to operate. He started with rhinoplasty: he cut out a new nose for the noseless barber. Plastic surgery was followed by inevitable lithotomy, amputation, and tumor removal. Having gone from Riga to Dorpat, he learned that the Moscow department promised to him had been given to another candidate. Pirogov received a clinic in Dorpat, where he created one of his most significant works - “Surgical anatomy of arterial trunks and fascia.”

Pirogov provided a description of the operations with drawings. Nothing like the anatomical atlases and tables that were used before him. Finally, he goes to France, where five years earlier, after the professorial institute, his superiors did not want to let him go. In Parisian clinics, Nikolai Ivanovich does not find anything unknown. It’s curious: as soon as he found himself in Paris, he hurried to the famous professor of surgery and anatomy Velpeau and found him reading “Surgical anatomy of the arterial trunks and fascia.”

In 1841, Pirogov was invited to the department of surgery at the Medical-Surgical Academy of St. Petersburg. Here the scientist worked for more than ten years and created the first surgical clinic in Russia. In it, he founded another branch of medicine - hospital surgery. Nikolai Ivanovich is appointed director of the Tool Plant, and he agrees. Now he is coming up with tools that any surgeon will use to perform the operation well and quickly. He is asked to accept a position as a consultant in one hospital, in another, in a third, and he again agrees. In the second year of his life in St. Petersburg, Pirogov became seriously ill, poisoned by the hospital miasma and the bad air of the dead. I couldn’t get up for a month and a half. He felt sorry for himself, poisoning his soul with sad thoughts about years lived without love and lonely old age. He went through his memory of everyone who could bring him family love and happiness. The most suitable of them seemed to him Ekaterina Dmitrievna Berezina, a girl from a well-born, but collapsed and greatly impoverished family. A hasty, modest wedding took place.

Pirogov had no time - great things awaited him. He simply locked his wife within the four walls of a rented and, on the advice of friends, furnished apartment. Ekaterina Dmitrievna died in the fourth year of marriage, leaving Pirogov with two sons: the second cost her her life. But in the difficult days of grief and despair for Pirogov, a great event happened - his project for the world's first Anatomical Institute was approved by the highest authorities.

On October 16, 1846, the first trial of ether anesthesia took place. In Russia, the first operation under anesthesia was performed on February 7, 1847 by Pirogov’s friend at the professorial institute, Fyodor Ivanovich Inozemtsev.

Soon Nikolai Ivanovich took part in military operations in the Caucasus. Here the great surgeon performed about 10,000 operations under ether anesthesia.

After the death of Ekaterina Dmitrievna, Pirogov was left alone. “I have no friends,” he admitted with his usual frankness. And boys, sons, Nikolai and Vladimir were waiting for him at home. Pirogov twice unsuccessfully tried to marry for convenience, which he did not consider necessary to hide from himself, from his acquaintances, and, it seems, from the girls planned as brides.

In a small circle of acquaintances, where Pirogov sometimes spent evenings, he was told about the twenty-two-year-old Baroness Alexandra Antonovna Bistrom. Pirogov proposed to Baroness Bistrom. She agreed.

When the Crimean War began in 1853, Nikolai Ivanovich considered it his civic duty to go to Sevastopol. He achieved appointment to the active army. While operating on the wounded, Pirogov, for the first time in the history of medicine, used a plaster cast, which accelerated the healing process of fractures and saved many soldiers and officers from ugly curvature of their limbs. On his initiative, a new form of medical care was introduced in the Russian army - nurses appeared. Thus, it was Pirogov who laid the foundations of military field medicine, and his achievements formed the basis for the activities of military field surgeons of the 19th-20th centuries; They were also used by Soviet surgeons during the Great Patriotic War.

After the fall of Sevastopol, Pirogov returned to St. Petersburg, where, at a reception with Alexander II, he reported on the incompetent leadership of the army by Prince Menshikov. The Tsar did not want to listen to Pirogov’s advice, and from that moment Nikolai Ivanovich fell out of favor. He was forced to leave the Medical-Surgical Academy. Appointed trustee of the Odessa and Kyiv educational districts, Pirogov is trying to change the school education system that existed in them. Naturally, his actions led to a conflict with the authorities, and the scientist again had to leave his post. In 1862-1866. supervised young Russian scientists sent to Germany. At the same time, Giusepe Garibaldi successfully operated on him. Since 1866 he lived on his estate in the village. Cherry, where he opened a hospital, a pharmacy and donated land to the peasants. He traveled from there only abroad, and also at the invitation of St. Petersburg University to give lectures. By this time, Pirogov was already a member of several foreign academies. As a consultant in military medicine and surgery, he went to the front during the Franco-Prussian (1870-1871) and Russian-Turkish (1877-1878) wars.

In 1879-1881. worked on “The Diary of an Old Doctor,” completing the manuscript shortly before his death. In May 1881, the fiftieth anniversary of Pirogov’s scientific activity was solemnly celebrated in Moscow and St. Petersburg. However, at this time the scientist was already terminally ill, and in the summer of 1881 he died on his estate. But by his own death he managed to immortalize himself. Shortly before his death, the scientist made another discovery - he proposed a completely new method of embalming the dead. Pirogov’s body was embalmed, placed in a crypt and is now preserved in Vinnitsa, within the boundaries of which the estate was turned into a museum. I.E. Repin painted a portrait of Pirogov, located in the Tretyakov Gallery. After Pirogov’s death, the Society of Russian Doctors was founded in his memory, which regularly convened Pirogov congresses. The memory of the great surgeon continues to this day. Every year on his birthday, a prize and medal are awarded in his name for achievements in the field of anatomy and surgery. The 2nd Moscow, Odessa and Vinnitsa medical institutes are named after Pirogov.

Every time you go to the hospital, especially to undergo surgery, you involuntarily think about how humanity reached such a science. Everyone knows famous surgeons. Pirogov Nikolai Ivanovich is one of the most famous doctors - an anatomist, the founder of anesthesia, a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

Childhood

The future doctor was born on November 13, 1810 in Moscow. Pirogov's family looked like this: father Ivan Ivanovich was treasurer. Grandfather Ivan Mikheich was a military man and came from a peasant family. Mother Elizaveta Ivanovna is from a merchant family. The youngest Nikolai had 5 brothers and sisters. In total, the parents had 14 children, but many died very early.

He studied at a boarding school for a short time, but due to financial problems he was forced to continue his studies at home. A family friend, doctor-professor E. Mukhin, made a very positive impact.

University

A brief biography of Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov as a doctor begins with the fact that at the age of fourteen he was enrolled in the Moscow Institute at the Faculty of Medicine. The scientific base was meager, and during his training the future doctor did not perform a single operation. But given the teenager’s enthusiasm, few of the teachers and classmates doubted that Pirogov was a surgeon. Over time, the desire to heal only intensified. For the future doctor, treating people became the meaning of his whole life.

Further activities

In 1828 the institute was successfully completed. The eighteen-year-old doctor went abroad for further studies and received a professorship. Just eight years later, he got what he wanted and became the head of the surgical department of the university in the Estonian city of Dorpat (real name - Tartu).

While still a student, rumors about him spread far beyond the boundaries of the educational institution.

In 1833 he went to Berlin, where he was struck by the lack of modernity of local surgery. However, I was pleasantly impressed by the skills and technology of my German colleagues.

In 1841, Pirogov returned to Russia and went to work at the Surgical Academy of St. Petersburg.

Over the fifteen years of his work, the doctor became very popular among all segments of society. Scientists valued his deep knowledge and determination. The poor segments of the population remember Nikolai Ivanovich as a disinterested doctor. People knew that Pirogov was a surgeon who could treat for free and even help financially those most in need.

Military medical practice

A short biography of Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov can tell about his participation in many clashes and military conflicts:

- (1854-1855).

Franco-Prussian War (1870, as part of the Red Cross Corps).

Russo-Turkish War (1877)

Scientific activities

Pirogov - medicine! The name of the doctor and science forever merged into one.

The world saw the scientist’s works, which formed the basis for prompt assistance to the wounded on the battlefield. “The Father of Russian Surgery” is impossible to describe briefly, his activities are so extensive.

Teachings about injuries caused by various weapons, including firearms, their cleaning and disinfection, body reactions, wounds, complications, bleeding, severe injuries, immobility of a limb - only a small part of what the great doctor left to his heirs. His texts are still used today to teach students in many disciplines.

Pirogov’s atlas “Topographic Anatomy” has gained worldwide fame.

The sixteenth of October 1846 is a significant date in history. For the first time for humanity, an operation was carried out using a complete sedative, ether.

A brief biography of Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov cannot fail to mention that it was the doctor who gave the scientific basis and was the first to successfully use anesthesia. The problem of the inability to relax muscles and the presence of reflexes during surgery has now been solved.

Like any innovation, ether was tested on animals - dogs and calves. Then on to the assistants. And only after successful tests did anesthesia begin to be used both during planned operations and when rescuing the wounded actually on the battlefield.

Another type of euthanasia was successfully tested - chloroform. Over the course of several years, the number of operations has come close to a thousand surgical interventions.

The intravenous use of ether had to be abandoned. There were frequent deaths. Only at the beginning of the twentieth century were doctors Kravkov and Fedorov able to solve this problem when researching a new remedy - Gedonal. This method of anesthesia is still often called “Russian”.

The most popular method was still inhaling the vapors of a sleeping substance.

The scientist tirelessly trained doctors in all corners of the country he visited. He performed operations right in front of patients, so that they could see with their own eyes the safety of this intervention.

The articles he wrote were translated into major European languages ​​- German, French, Italian, English - and published in leading publications.

At the dawn of discoveries, doctors came even from America in order to learn the newest method.

Triage and treatment

A short biography of Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov contains information about research and the invention of a device that significantly improves inhalation capabilities.

The great physician also moved from imperfect starch dressings to plaster casts in 1852.

At Pirogov’s insistence, female nurses appeared in military medical institutions. Thanks to the doctor, the training of this type of medical personnel has received powerful development.

Thanks to the influence of Nikolai Ivanovich, triage of the wounded was introduced. There were five categories in total - from hopeless to those who needed minimal help.

Thanks to this simple approach, the speed of transportation to other medical institutions has increased many times over. Which gave a chance not only for life, but also for complete recovery.

Previously, when several hundred people were admitted at the same time, chaos reigned in the waiting rooms; assistance was provided too slowly.

In the nineteenth century there was no established science about vitamins. Pirogov was firmly convinced that carrots and fish oil helped speed up recovery. The term “therapeutic nutrition” was introduced to the world. The doctor prescribed “walks in the fresh air” for his patients. He paid considerable attention to hygiene.

Pirogov also has many plastic surgeries and installation of prostheses. Successfully used osteoplasty.

Family

The doctor was married twice. The first wife, Ekaterina Berezina, left our world early - at only twenty-four years old.

The children of Pirogov Nikolai Ivanovich - Nikolai and Vladimir - saw the world.

The second wife is Baroness Alexandra von Bystrom.

Memory

Nikolai Ivanovich died on November 23, 1881 on his estate near Vinnitsa. The body was embalmed (also Pirogov's discovery) and placed in a glass sarcophagus. Currently, you can pay tribute to the scientist in the basement of the local Orthodox church.

In you can see the doctor’s personal belongings, manuscripts and a suicide note with a diagnosis.

Grateful descendants perpetuated the memory of the genius in numerous congresses and readings named in honor of Nikolai Ivanovich. Monuments and busts have been unveiled in many cities in different countries. Institutes and universities, hospitals and clinics, blood transfusion stations, streets, the Surgical Center named after the surgeon are named after the surgeon. N.I. Pirogov, embankment and even an asteroid.

In 1947, the feature film “Pirogov” was shot.

Bulgaria expressed its memory with a postage stamp in 1977 with the title “100 years since the arrival of the academician.”

Nikolai Pirogov is a famous Russian surgeon who made an invaluable contribution to the development of Russian and world medicine. He was born in Moscow in 1810. His father was an officer, served as treasurer at the depot, earned good money, and was able to give his son a good education. Nikolai began his studies at a private boarding school. Even as a child, the boy showed a strong passion for the natural sciences. At the age of 14, Pirogov entered Moscow State University, the Faculty of Medicine. I managed to get into a prestigious educational institution through deception. In the application form, Nikolai credited himself with two years. Being an 18-year-old boy, he can already work as a doctor, but such work did not attract him. Pirogv decides to continue his studies - he wants to be a surgeon.

Nikolai Ivanovich moves to Tartu, where he enters Yuryev University. After graduating, he defends his doctoral dissertation. The topic of the dissertation is ligation of the abdominal aorta. It was thanks to his research that for the first time information appeared in medicine about the exact location of the abdominal aorta and the characteristics of blood circulation in it.

By the age of 26, Nikolai Pirogov became a professor at the University of Dorpat, engaged in scientific activities and practice (heads the clinic at the university). Soon he finishes his work - “Surgical anatomy of arterial trunks and fascia.” Pirogov became the first doctor in the world who tried to study the membranes surrounding muscle groups. The world and Russian countries highly appreciated Pirogov’s work. The Academy of Sciences awarded him the Demidov Prize.

Nikolai Pirogov was the first doctor who insisted on the widespread use of antiseptics. He believed that these drugs were indispensable, especially in surgery. He did a lot for the development of medicine in. The physician devoted himself completely to science and society. The wars in which Russia participated during his lifetime did not pass him by either. So Pirogov visited, Caucasian and. Over the years of military field medical practice, he came up with various effective ways to evacuate the wounded from the battlefield, as well as their subsequent treatment.

Nikolai Ivanovich was the largest researcher of the properties of ether anesthesia. Thanks to him, anesthesia has found wide use in hospitals and in military field conditions.

He developed methods of caring for the wounded and discovered a number of measures to prevent the development of body decay. Nikolai Ivanovich improved plaster casts. Many of Pirogov’s discoveries and innovations are still relevant today.

Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov died in 1881.

8.Primary surgical treatment of wounds

9. Surgical anatomy of the shoulder joint. Features of surgical approaches to the joint.

10. Cellular spaces of the hand.

11. Features of primary surgical treatment of wounds of the hand?

15. Topographer. Anatomy of the femoral artery.

Branches of the femoral artery

16. Surgical anatomy of the knee joint. Puncture and arthrothymia of the knee joint: indications, possible complications.

17. TApopliteal pits.

21.Operations on joints: puncture, arthrotomy, arthrodesis, arthroplasty. Intra- and extra-articular joint resection.

25. Fronto-parietal-occipital region

26Surgical anatomy of the meninges. Infrathecal spaces. Sinuses of the dura mater. Blood supply to the brain.

27. Liquor system of the brain. Ventricles and cisterns of the brain.

31. Fascia and cellular spaces of the neck

Cellular spaces of the neck

Typical sites of localization of purulent-inflammatory processes

Incisions for abscesses and cellulitis of the neck

32.Topographic anatomy of the sternocleidomastoid region. The concept of torticollis and methods of its surgical correction. Cervical plexus block.

34. Surgical anatomy of the thyroid and parathyroid glands. Subtotal subfascial resection of the thyroid gland according to Nikolaev. Complications during strumectomy.

37. The concept of median and lateral fistulas and cysts of the neck. Methods of surgical treatment.

38. Surgical anatomy of the breast

Incisions for gland abscesses

Radical mastectomy: indications, surgical technique, complications

40 Hir. Anat. Pericardium.

44. Surgical anatomy of the thoracic (lymphatic) duct. External drainage of the duct. Lymphosorption: indications, technique, complications.

45 Anterolateral abdominal wall. Types of surgical approaches to the abdominal organs, their anatomical and physiological assessment

6. Posterior muscle trunks

Types of surgical approaches to the abdominal organs

46Topographic anatomy of the inguinal canal. Anatomical and pathogenetic prerequisites for the formation of inguinal hernias. Methods of strengthening the inguinal canal for oblique and direct inguinal hernias.

47 Congenital inguinal hernia, features of surgical treatment. Features of operations for strangulated and sliding hernias.

48 Umbilical hernias and hernias of the white line of the abdomen. Operations for these hernias. Congenital umbilical fistulas and their surgical treatment.???

49. Topographic anatomy of the upper floor of the abdominal cavity. Hepatic, pregastric and omental bursae, their significance in surgical pathology. Drainage of the omental bursa in pancreatic necrosis.

51. Gastric resection: definition, indications. Modern modifications of gastric resection according to Billroth I and Billroth II. Selective vagotomy.

52. Surgical anatomy of the liver. Gate of the liver, lobar and segmental structure. Operative approaches to the liver. Stopping bleeding in liver damage. The concept of anatomical resections.

53Methods of surgical treatment of portal hypertension. The merits of domestic scientists - Ekka, Pavlova, Bogoraz - in the development of methods for surgical treatment of portal hypertension.

54. Splenoportography and transumbilical portography, their significance in the diagnosis of portal hypertension and liver diseases.

55. Surgical anatomy of the gallbladder and extrahepatic bile ducts. Cholecystectomy: indications, surgical technique. The concept of surgical treatment of biliary atresia.

58. Main types of intestinal sutures and their theoretical basis. Suture of Lambert, Pirogov-Cherny, Albert, Schmieden. The concept of a single-row Mateshuk seam.

Small bowel resection

60. Surgical anatomy of the cecum and vermiform appendix. Operative approaches to the appendix. Appendectomy: technique, possible complications.

61 T.A. Lumbar region. Operative access to the kidneys

67. Surgical anatomy of the rectum. Fascial capsule and fiber spaces of the rectum. Incisions for paraproctitis.

66Surgical anatomy of the rectum. The concept of atresia and prolapse of the rectum and methods of their surgical treatment.

68. Hir anat. The uterus and its appendages.

69. Surgical anatomy of the fallopian tubes and ovaries. Operative approaches to the uterus. Surgery for impaired tubal pregnancy.

70. Surgical anatomy of the testicle. Operations for cryptorchidism and hydrocele of the testicular membranes.

ACTIVITIES OF N.I. PIROGOV

1. Pirogov - founder of surgical anatomy.

The founder of surgical anatomy is the brilliant Russian scientist, anatomist, surgeon N.I. Pirogov. Issues of topographic anatomy are presented in his three outstanding works: 1. “Surgical anatomy of arterial trunks and fascia” 2. “A complete course of applied anatomy of the human body with drawings. Descriptive-physiological and surgical anatomy" 3. "Topographic anatomy, illustrated by sections drawn through the frozen human body in three directions."

In the first of these works, N.I. Pirogov established the most important laws for surgical practice of the relationships between blood vessels and fascia, which form the basis of topographic anatomy as a science. He described the position of the arterial trunks and the layers covering them as they appear to the surgeon when the vessels are exposed during surgery. It is precisely this kind of information that, in the opinion of N.I. Pirogov, should constitute the content of surgical anatomy.

N.I. Pirogov also used the cutting method to develop the question of the most appropriate access to various organs and rational surgical techniques. Thus, having proposed a new method of exposing the common and external iliac arteries, Pirogov made a series of cuts in directions corresponding to the skin incisions during these operations. Pirogov's cuts clearly show the significant advantages of both of his methods compared to others. The extraperitoneal lumbar-ilio-inguinal incision proposed by Pirogov served as an impetus for the further development of approaches to the retroperitoneal organs.

Pirogov said: There may be a different approach to information about the structure of the human body, and Pirogov writes about this: “... A surgeon should study anatomy, but not like an anatomist... The department of surgical anatomy should belong to a professor not of anatomy, but of surgery. .. Only in the hands of a practical doctor can applied anatomy be instructive for listeners. Let an anatomist study a human corpse to the smallest detail, and yet he will never be able to draw the attention of students to those points of anatomy that are extremely important for a surgeon, but for him may have absolutely no significance.”

2.N.I. Pirogov - founder of experimental surgery

Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov(1810-1881) - Russian surgeon and anatomist, teacher, public figure, founder of military field surgery and anatomical and experimental trends in surgery, corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1846).

One of Pirogov’s most significant works is “Surgical Anatomy of Arterial Trunks and Fascia,” completed in Dorpat. He doesn’t need everything that Pirogov discovered in itself, he needs all of it to indicate the best ways to perform operations, first of all, “to find the right way to ligate this or that artery,” as he says. Here begins a new science created by Pirogov - this is surgical anatomy. In 1841, Pirogov was invited to the department of surgery at the Medical-Surgical Academy of St. Petersburg. Here the scientist worked for more than ten years and created the first surgical clinic in Russia. In it, he founded another branch of medicine - hospital surgery. Nikolai Ivanovich is appointed director of the Tool Plant. Now he is coming up with tools that any surgeon will use to perform the operation well and quickly. On October 16, 1846, the first test of ether anesthesia took place. In Russia, the first operation under anesthesia was performed on February 7, 1847 by Pirogov’s friend at the professorial institute, Fyodor Ivanovich Inozemtsev. Soon Nikolai Ivanovich took part in military operations in the Caucasus. Here, in the village of Salta, for the first time in the history of medicine, he began to operate on the wounded with ether anesthesia. In total, the great surgeon performed about 10,000 operations under ether anesthesia. Pirogov in the anatomical theater, sawing frozen corpses with a special saw. Using cuts made in a similar way, Pirogov compiled the first anatomical atlas, which became an indispensable guide for surgeons. Now they have the opportunity to operate with minimal trauma to the patient. When the Crimean War began in 1853, Nikolai Ivanovich went to Sevastopol. While operating on the wounded, Pirogov used a plaster cast for the first time in the history of medicine.

Awards of Nikolai Pirogov

Order of St. Vladimir

Order of Saint Anne

Honorary Citizen of Moscow

Nikolai Pirogov was born on November 25, 1810 in Moscow. His father, who served as treasurer, Ivan Ivanovich Pirogov, had fourteen children, most of whom died in infancy. Of the six survivors, Nikolai is the youngest.

A family acquaintance, a famous Moscow doctor and professor at Moscow University, Efrem Mukhin, helped him get an education, who noticed the boy’s abilities and began to work with him individually. When Nikolai was fourteen years old, he entered the medical faculty of Moscow University. To do this, he had to add two years to himself, but he passed the exams no worse than his older comrades.

Pirogov studied easily. In addition, he had to constantly work part-time to help his family. Finally, the young man managed to get a job at the anatomical theater. This work gave him invaluable experience and convinced him that he should become a surgeon.

Having graduated from the university one of the first in academic performance, Nikolai Pirogov went to prepare for professorship at Yuryev University in Tartu. At that time, this university was considered the best in Russia. Here, in the surgical clinic, Pirogov brilliantly defended his doctoral dissertation and at the age of twenty-six became a professor of surgery.

Nikolai Pirogov chose the topic of his dissertation as ligation of the abdominal aorta, which had been performed only once before by the English surgeon Astley Cooper. The conclusions of Pirogov’s dissertation turned out to be equally important for both theory and practice.

He was the first to study and describe the topography, that is, the location of the abdominal aorta in humans, circulatory disorders during its ligation, circulatory pathways in case of its obstruction, and explained the causes of postoperative complications. Nikolay proposed two ways to access the aorta: transperitoneal and extraperitoneal. When any damage to the peritoneum threatened death, the second method was especially necessary. Astley Cooper, who ligated the aorta using the transperitoneal method for the first time, said, having become acquainted with Pirogov’s dissertation, that if he had to perform the operation again, he would choose a different method.

When Nikolai Ivanovich, after five years in Dorpat, went to Berlin to study, the famous surgeons, to whom he went with his head bowed respectfully, read his dissertation, hastily translated into German. The teacher who more than others combined everything that Pirogov was looking for in a surgeon was found not in Berlin, but in Göttingen, in the person of Professor Langenbeck. The Gottingen professor taught him the purity of surgical techniques, taught him to hear the whole and complete melody of the operation. He showed Pirogov how to adapt the movements of the legs and the whole body to the actions of the operating hand.

Returning home, Pirogov fell seriously ill and was left for treatment in Riga. The city was lucky: if the scientist had not fallen ill, it would not have become a platform for his rapid recognition. As soon as Nikolai got out of the hospital bed, he began to operate. The city had previously heard rumors about a promising young surgeon. Now it was necessary to confirm the good reputation that ran far ahead.

Pirogov began with rhinoplasty: he cut out a new nose for the noseless barber. Then he remembered that it was the best nose he had ever made in his life. Plastic surgery was followed by amputations and tumor removals. In Riga, he operated for the first time as a teacher. From Riga, Nikolai headed to Dorpat, where he learned that the Moscow department promised to him had been given to another candidate. But he was lucky: Iva Filippovich Moyer handed over his clinic in Dorpat to the student.

One of the most significant works of Nikolai Pirogov is “Surgical anatomy of arterial trunks and fascia” completed in Dorpat. Already in the name itself, gigantic layers are raised: surgical anatomy, the science that Pirogov created from his first, youthful labors, and the only pebble that began the movement of the masses of fascia.

Before Pirogov, almost no work was done on fascia: they knew that there were such fibrous plates, membranes surrounding muscle groups or individual muscles, they saw them when opening corpses, they came across them during operations, they dissected them with a knife, without attaching any importance to them.

Nikolai Pirogov began with a very modest task: he undertook to study the direction of the fascial membranes. Having learned the particulars, the course of each fascia, he went to the general and deduced certain patterns of the position of the fascia relative to nearby vessels, muscles, nerves, and discovered certain anatomical patterns.

Everything that Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov discovered was not necessary for him in itself, he needed all this to indicate the best ways to perform operations, first of all, “to find the right way to ligate this or that artery,” as he said. This is where the new science created by Pirogov begins - this is surgical anatomy.

Nikolai Pirogov provided a description of the operations with drawings. Nothing like the anatomical atlases and tables that were used before him. No discounts, no conventions, the greatest accuracy of the drawings: proportions are not violated, every branch, every knot, jumper is preserved and reproduced. Pirogov, not without pride, invited patient readers to check any detail of the drawings in the anatomical theater.

In 1841, Pirogov was invited to the department of surgery at the Medico-Surgical Academy of St. Petersburg. Here the scientist worked for more than ten years and created the first surgical clinic in Russia. There he founded another branch of medicine - hospital surgery.

Pirogov arrived in the capital as a winner. The audience where he taught surgery courses was filled with at least three hundred people: not only doctors crowded the benches; students from other educational institutions, writers, officials, military men, artists, engineers, even ladies came to listen to the scientist. Newspapers and magazines wrote about him, compared his lectures with the concerts of the famous Italian Angelica Catalani, that is, his speech about incisions, sutures, purulent inflammations and autopsy results were compared with divine singing.

Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov was appointed director of the Tool Plant. Now the doctor came up with tools that any surgeon would use to perform the operation well and quickly.

The first test of ether anesthesia occurred on October 16, 1846. And he quickly began to conquer the world. In Russia, the first operation under anesthesia was performed on February 7, 1847 by Pirogov’s friend at the professorial institute, Fyodor Ivanovich Inozemtsev, who headed the department of surgery at Moscow University.

Nikolai Ivanovich performed the first operation using anesthesia a week later. But Inozemtsev performed eighteen operations under anesthesia from February to November 1847, and by May 1847 Pirogov had already received the results of fifty. During the year, six hundred and ninety operations under anesthesia were performed in thirteen cities of Russia. Three hundred of them were Pirogov.

Soon Nikolai Ivanovich took part in military operations in the Caucasus. Here, in the village of Salty, for the first time in the history of medicine, he began to operate on the wounded with ether anesthesia. In total, the great surgeon performed about 10,000 operations under ether anesthesia.

One day, while walking through the market, Pirogov saw butchers sawing cow carcasses into pieces. The scientist noticed that the section clearly shows the location of the internal organs. After some time, he tried this method in the anatomical theater, sawing frozen corpses with a special saw. Pirogov himself called it “ice anatomy.” Thus was born a new medical discipline - topographic anatomy.

Using cuts made in a similar way, Pirogov compiled the first anatomical atlas, which became an indispensable guide for surgeons. Now they have the opportunity to operate with minimal trauma to the patient. This atlas and the proposed technique became the basis for all subsequent development of operative surgery.

When the Crimean War began in 1853, Nikolai Ivanovich considered it his civic duty to go to Sevastopol. Achieved appointment to the active army. While operating on the wounded, Pirogov, for the first time in the history of medicine, used a plaster cast, which accelerated the healing process of fractures and saved many soldiers and officers from ugly curvature of their limbs.

Pirogov’s most important achievement is the introduction of triage of the wounded in Sevastopol: some underwent surgery directly in combat conditions, others were evacuated deep into the country after first aid was provided. On his initiative, a new form of medical care was introduced in the Russian army, and nurses appeared. Thus he laid the foundations of military field medicine.

After the fall of Sevastopol, Pirogov returned to St. Petersburg, where, at a reception with Alexander II, he reported on the incompetent leadership of the army by Prince Menshikov. The Tsar did not want to listen to Pirogov’s advice, and from that moment Nikolai Ivanovich fell out of favor.

The doctor left the Medical-Surgical Academy. Appointed trustee of the Odessa and Kyiv educational districts, Pirogov tried to change the school education system that existed in them. Naturally, his actions led to a conflict with the authorities, and the scientist had to leave his post.

For some time, Nikolai Pirogov settled on his estate “Vishnya” near Vinnitsa, where he organized a free hospital. From there he traveled only abroad, and also at the invitation of St. Petersburg University to give lectures. By this time, Pirogov was already a member of several foreign academies.

In May 1881, the fiftieth anniversary of Pirogov’s scientific activity was solemnly celebrated in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The great Russian physiologist Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov addressed him with greetings. However, at this time the scientist was already terminally ill. Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov died on December 5, 1881, in the village of Vinnitsa, Ukraine.

The significance of the work of Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov lies in the fact that with his selfless work he turned surgery into a science, equipping doctors with a scientifically based method of surgical intervention.

Shortly before his death, the scientist made another discovery - he proposed a completely new method of embalming the dead. To this day, the body of Pirogov himself, embalmed in this way, is kept in the church in the village of Vishni.

Awards of Nikolai Pirogov

Order of the White Eagle (Russian Empire)

Order of St. Vladimir

Order of Saint Anne

Order of St. Stanislaus (Russian Empire)

Medal "For the Defense of Sevastopol"

Medal "In Memory of the War of 1853-1856"

Honorary Citizen of Moscow

A molded alabaster bandage for the treatment of simple and complex fractures and for transporting the wounded to the battlefield. - St. Petersburg, 1854.
Historical review of the actions of the Holy Cross community of sisters caring for the wounded and sick, in military hospitals in the Crimea and in the Kherson province, from December 1, 1854 to December 1, 1855 - St. Petersburg, 1856
Collection of literary articles. - Odessa, 1858.

Family of Nikolai Pirogov

The first wife (from December 11, 1842) is Ekaterina Dmitrievna Berezina (1822-1846), a representative of an ancient noble family, the granddaughter of the infantry general Count N. A. Tatishchev. She died at the age of 24 from complications after childbirth.
Son - Nikolai (1843-1891), physicist.
Son - Vladimir (1846 - after November 13, 1910), historian and archaeologist. He was a professor at the Imperial Novorossiysk University in the department of history. In 1910, he temporarily lived in Tiflis and was present on November 13-26, 1910 at an extraordinary meeting of the Imperial Caucasian Medical Society dedicated to the memory of N. I. Pirogov.

Second wife (from June 7, 1850) - Alexandra von Bistrom (1824-1902), baroness, daughter of Lieutenant General A. A. Bistrom, great-niece of the navigator I. F. Krusenstern. The wedding took place at the Goncharov estate Polotnyany Zavod, and the sacrament of wedding took place on June 7/20, 1850 in the local Transfiguration Church. For a long time, Pirogov was credited with the authorship of the article “The Ideal of a Woman,” which is a selection from the correspondence of N. I. Pirogov with his second wife. In 1884, through the efforts of Alexandra Antonovna, a surgical hospital was opened in Kyiv.