Sechenov and his discoveries. From the history of medicine. Life of great doctors. Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov. Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov - an outstanding Russian physiologist, the founder of medical psychology as a science

HISTORY OF MEDICINE

IVAN MIKHAILOVICH SECHENOV IN THE HISTORY OF RUSSIAN AND WORLD PHYSIOLOGY

T.S. Sorokin

History of Medicine Course Peoples' Friendship University of Russia st. Miklukho-Maklaya, 8, Moscow, Russia, 117198

The article analyzes the history of the life and work of the great Russian scientist - Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov (1829-1905), his contribution to the formation and development of the physiology of the central nervous system, respiration, the doctrine of the unity of the body and the environment, to the creation of a domestic scientific physiological school, to the development higher medical education.

Keywords: I.M. Sechenov, physiology of the central nervous system, physiology of respiration, scientific schools, higher medical education.

In the history of physiology, the second half of the 19th century was marked by great progress in the study of individual functions of the body and some mechanisms of regulation of organs and systems at the level of the spinal cord. First of all, it is the physiology of the heart (E. Weber, I.F. Zion, I.P. Pavlov), blood vessels (K. Bernard, K. Ludwig, A.P. Walter, I.F. Zion, F.V. Ovsyannikov), skeletal muscles (F. Magendi, I.M. Sechenov, N.E. Vvedensky), respiratory system (N.A. Mislavsky), other organs and systems.

However, all this knowledge obtained in brilliant experiments remained scattered, - they were not united by theoretical generalizations about the interconnection of various body functions with each other. It was a period of accumulation of information, so necessary at the first stage - the period of analytical physiology, when the analysis of phenomena prevailed.

The analytical nature of physiological science in the second half of the 19th century. led to the division of phenomena occurring in a living organism into two categories: (1) "internal", vegetative processes (metabolism, respiration, blood circulation, etc.) and (2) "animals" (animal), which determine the behavior of animals which the physiology of that time could not yet explain. This led either to vulgar materialism (K. Vogt, F.K. Bruchner, J. Moleschot), or to agnosticism.

mu, i.e. to the statement about the unknowability of behavior and consciousness (E. Dubois-Reymond and others).

In order to bring physiology out of the impasse of the analytical period, a fundamentally new, synthetic approach to the knowledge of the activity of living organisms was needed. He expressed himself in the desire to study the regulatory functions of the nervous system and, first of all, reflexes.

The reflex theory is one of the main theoretical concepts of physiology and medicine. This area of physiology is especially marked by the contribution of Russian scientists. Understanding the relationship between body and mind is a wonderful page in history Russian science, culminating in the creation of the doctrine of higher nervous activity (HNA).

However, in the middle of the 19th century, the reflex principle was developed only in relation to the spinal cord. There were discussions about the role of the brain, but there was no experimental confirmation of its participation in the life of the body. The great Russian scientist I.M. Sechenov was the first who began to study the reflexes of the brain in an experiment and applied physiological methods to the study of mental behavior.

Rice. 1. Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov Photo from the 1860s

The founder of the theory of brain reflexes Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov (1829-1905; Fig. 1) - Doctor of Medicine, Professor, Corresponding Member (1869) and Honorary Member (1904) of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Acting State Councilor. Born on August 1 (13), 1829 in the village of Teply Stan, Simbirsk province (now the village of Sechenovo, Nizhny Novgorod region). At the age of 14 he entered the Main Engineering School in St. Petersburg. Upon completion (1848) he was

was sent to Kiev as a sapper officer. However, he soon retired (1850) and entered the medical faculty of the Imperial Moscow University, from which he graduated with honors in 1856. After that, he was sent abroad to prepare for a professorship and for almost four years (1856-1860) with great success conducted his research and listened to lectures in the scientific centers of Germany with I. Muller, E. Dubois-Reymond, F. Goppe-Seyler, G. Helmholtz, O. Funke, in Vienna with K. Ludwig, in Paris with K. Bernard.

Sechenov was the first Russian scientist to cross the threshold of Karl Ludwig's laboratory (1858). After him, dozens of Russian physiologists conducted scientific research or were preparing for a professorship with Ludwig - first in Vienna, and after 1865 in Leipzig.

Upon his return to Russia in March 1860, I.M. Sechenov defended his doctoral dissertation "Materials for the future physiology of alcohol intoxication." His official opponents were Alexander Petrovich Zagorsky (1808-1888) - professor of the Department of Physiology of the Imperial Medical-Surgical Academy (MXA), son of the famous anatomist Academician Pyotr Andreevich Zagorsky (1764-1846); Nikolai Fedorovich Zdekauer (1815-1898) - full professor and head of the Department of General Pathology, General Therapy and Medical Diagnostics of the Moscow Art Academy, and Yakov Alekseevich Chistovich (1820-1885) - full professor and head of the Department of Forensic Medicine and Hygiene of the Moscow Art Academy and a well-known historian of medicine. Note that later Ya.A. Chistovich became the editor and then the publisher of the weekly journal Medical Bulletin, in which later (in 1863) I.M. Sechenov "Reflexes of the brain".

After the defense, Ivan Mikhailovich was invited to the Department of Physiology of the Moscow Art Academy, where he read a full course of physiology, first as an adjunct professor, then as an extraordinary (1861) and ordinary professor (1864), in 1869-1870 academic year headed the Department of Physiology of the Moscow Art Academy (1).

Since 1870, Ivan Mikhailovich was a professor at the department of physiology at the Novorossiysk University in Odessa, and then at St. Petersburg University (1876-1889). In 1889 he moved to Moscow and in the summer of 1891 received an offer to head the Physiological Institute and the Department of Physiology of the Medical Faculty of Moscow University (Table 1) .

“Ten Sechenov’s years” (1891-1901) was a bright period in the history of the department, and for Ivan Mikhailovich it was “a great pleasure, especially since we worked not without success,” as he later noted in his Autobiographical Notes. At that time, his closest friend in the laboratory was Lev Zakharovich Morokhovets (1848-1919), and later his talented student Mikhail Nikolaevich Shaternikov (1870-1939), who later became the head (1917-1939) of this department.

In 1901, at the age of 72, I.M. Sechenov refused to head a department at Moscow University in order, in his words, "to clear the way for young forces", but until the end of his life he continued to work at the department - in a laboratory he created at his own expense.

Table 1

Stages of the scientific biography of I.M. Sechenov

Years Stages of scientific biography Occupation/title

1843-1848 Main Engineering School (St. Petersburg) Student

1850-1856 Imperial Moscow University (Moscow) Medical student

1856-1860 Scientific centers of Germany, Austria, France Scientific research

1860-1870 Imperial Medical and Surgical Academy (St. Petersburg) Dissertation "Materials for the future physiology of alcohol intoxication" (March 1860)

Adjunct professor (since 1860)

Extraordinary professor (since 1861)

Ordinary professor (since 1864)

Head of the Department of Physiology of the Moscow Art Academy (in the 1869-1870 academic year)

1869 Imperial Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg) Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences

1870 St. Petersburg Work in the laboratory of D.I. Mendeleev

1870-1876 1876 Novorossiysk University (Odessa) Full professor; Honorary Member of the University

1876-1889 St. Petersburg University (St. Petersburg) Full professor

1889-1901 Imperial Moscow University Ordinary Professor, Honored Ordinary Professor

1904 Imperial Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg) Honorary Member of the Academy of Sciences

In teaching, Ivan Mikhailovich advocated the widespread introduction of practical classes in physiology at universities - for the introduction of "practice in physiology into the category of recommended classes."

Under him, the position of a lecture assistant was introduced at the department for the first time. The experiments, brilliantly prepared by Alexander Filippovich Samoilov (1867-1930) and Mikhail Nikolaevich Shaternikov, were carried out during lectures right in front of the students; visual demonstrations awakened creative thinking and the desire for independent scientific work.

Under Sechenov, in 1893, a new building of the Physiological Institute of Moscow University was opened with a vivarium, well-equipped laboratories and rooms for students to study. It was the first scientific and pedagogical center that united an educational department and a scientific institution under one roof (now the Department of Normal Physiology of the First Moscow State Medical University named after I.M. Sechenov). For a long time, the Memorial office of I.M. Sechenov.

In 1930, the medical faculty of IMU was transformed into the 1st Moscow Medical Institute. In 1955, he was named after Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov (now the First Moscow State Medical University named after I.M. Sechenov), and in 1958, a monument to I.M. Sechenov (Fig. 2).

Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov is the author of 106 scientific papers on the physiology of respiration and blood, the dissolution of gases in liquids and gas exchange, the physiology of the central nervous system, neuromuscular physiology, and electrophysiology. A complete list of his works is given in the fundamental monograph by N.A. Grigoryan.

Rice. 2. Monument to Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov in front of the Museum of the History of Medicine of the First Moscow State Medical University named after him. Sculptor L.E. Kerbel

Physiology of respiration. One of the important directions scientific research THEM. Sechenov was the physiology of respiration. He was the first to extract and analyze the gases dissolved in the blood; discovered carboxyhemoglobin - a chemical compound of hemoglobin with carbon dioxide. His work on gas exchange and the dissolution of gases in liquids laid the foundations for future aviation and, later, space physiology and medicine.

For the experimental study of the processes of respiration, he designed a number of instruments and apparatus.

Working in the laboratory of Karl Ludwig, Ivan Mikhailovich invented an absorption meter - a device for extracting gases from blood, which made it possible to analyze with great accuracy the absorption of gases by whole blood and plasma and to study the tension of gases in the blood (the prototype of the modern Van Slyke apparatus). Its fundamental difference from all previously invented devices was that in Sechenov's device, blood was placed in a renewable Torricellian void, which guaranteed the complete extraction of gases absorbed by the blood.

“Following how the apparatus for breathing a person in a fixed position was arranged,” he wrote, “we (with M.N. Shaternikov) tried to give it

portable form, which makes it possible to measure breathing on the go ... Frankly, the device of a portable form was a great joy for me, because the study of breathing on the go was always my dream, which, moreover, seemed impossible.

With the help of an absorptiometer, Sechenov for the first time carried out a detailed study of the partial pressure of oxygen in the alveoli in normal conditions and, with “fluctuations in air pressure downwards”, established the law of constancy of the composition of alveolar air at normal barometric pressure and partial pressure of oxygen.

The tragic death of two French aeronauts Croce-Spinelli (Sussermet) and Sivel of the three who rose on April 15, 1875 in a balloon "Zenith" to a height of more than 8000 m, deeply shocked I.M. Sechenov and prompted him to investigate the causes of the disaster, i.e. to the study of physiology (or rather biophysics) of pulmonary gas exchange.

At that time, the causes of the death of aeronauts were incomprehensible even to physiologists - the composition of the alveolar air was not known, the theory of pulmonary metabolism did not exist, and Sechenov decided to establish how the partial pressure of oxygen in the lung air changes depending on changes in barometric pressure. He published the results of his research in 1880-1881. in Russian and German: thus, for the first time in the world, he developed a common mathematical theory composition of alveolar air and derived formulas for its calculation under changing parameters of pressure and composition of atmospheric air.

His calculations showed that with the invariance of metabolic processes, the partial pressure of oxygen in the alveolar air at an altitude of 8000 m should decrease to 5 mm of mercury. “But such a drop in partial pressure is tantamount to suffocation, because the hemoglobin in the blood would absorb too little oxygen for life to continue.” Moreover, according to Sechenov's calculations, the danger to life arises much earlier - as soon as "the partial stress goes down from 20 mm, conditions for suffocation set in."

It follows that the aeronauts reached an altitude at which the partial pressure of oxygen in the alveolar air was so low that it could no longer support life. The opportunity to experimentally confirm the calculations and patterns discovered by Sechenov appeared only 25 years later.

Another important conclusion of Sechenov concerns the effect of carbon dioxide on the regulation of respiration - he was the first to draw attention to the fact that not oxygen, but carbon dioxide, has a significant effect on the regulation of respiration.

His theory of the composition of the alveolar air was extremely important for the emergence and development of flying and diving. That's why I.M. Sechenov is rightfully considered the founder of aviation and space physiology.

But perhaps Ivan Mikhailovich's most remarkable area of research is the physiology of the central nervous system (CNS).

Physiology of the central nervous system. At the time of Sechenov, ideas about the work of the brain were very limited. In the middle of the XIX century. there was no doctrine of the neuron as a structural unit of the nervous system. It was created only in 1884 by the Spanish histologist S. Ramon-y-Cajal (Santjago Ramon-y-Cajal, 1852-1934), Nobel Prize winner in 1906. There was no concept of a synapse, which was introduced in 1897. English physiologist Charles Sherrington (Charles Scott Sherrington, 1857-1952), who formulated the principles of the neural organization of the reflex arc.

Before Sechenov, as already noted, the reflex principle was applied only to the activity of the spinal cord, - I.M. Sechenov was the first to extend the reflex principle to the activity of the brain.

In 1862, working in the laboratory of Claude Bernard in France, in experiments on frogs with layer-by-layer transection and stimulation of the centers of the brain with salt crystals, Sechenov showed that there are mechanisms in the visual tubercles and the medulla oblongata that actively delay reflex movements.

Thus, he discovered central (Sechenov's) inhibition and demonstrated for the first time that, along with the process of excitation, there is another active process in the central nervous system - inhibition, without which the integrative activity of the central nervous system is unthinkable.

Continuing his research, Sechenov came to the conclusion that “psychic phenomena are related to the so-called nervous processes in the human body, i.e. purely somatic acts” (according to the essence of their reflex origin).

“All the endless variety of manifestations of brain activity,” he wrote, “is finally reduced to just one phenomenon - muscle movement. Does the child laugh at the sight of a toy; does Garibaldi smile when he is persecuted for his excessive love of his country; does the girl tremble at the first thought of love; whether Newton creates the laws of the world and writes them down on paper, everywhere the final factor is muscular movement”

Thus, Sechenov put forward the idea of a reflex (i.e., material) basis of mental activity and for the first time proposed to approach the study mental processes with the help of physiological methods, for "all acts of conscious and unconscious life, by their mode of origin, are reflexes."

In other words, I.M. Sechenov, for the first time in the history of science, formulated the doctrine of the reflex as a universal physiological mechanism of the organism's activity, which ensures its vital activity and adaptation to changing environmental conditions. His research on the study of mental phenomena is summarized in the psychophysiological treatise "Reflexes of the Brain" (1863), which I.P. Pavlov called "a brilliant stroke of Sechenov's thought." The essence of this work is succinctly expressed in its two original titles, changed at the request of censorship: "An attempt to reduce the mode of origin of mental phenomena to physiological foundations", and then "An attempt to introduce physiological foundations into mental processes."

This work was written by order of the editor of the leading and widely distributed magazine Sovremennik - N.G. Chernyshevsky (later he was replaced in this post by N.A. Nekrasov). Sechenov was given the task of giving an analysis of the current state of natural science.

When the work was written and already typed in No. 10 of this journal for 1863, the author’s materialistic views on human behavior and mental activity, confirmed by his physiological experiments on frogs, forced the censor of the Ministry of the Interior to recognize this work as dangerous, - publication in the journal Sovremennik ” was banned and the set was scattered.

However, censorship allowed "printing it in a medical or other special edition" under a different title and "with a number of significant censorship exceptions." As a result, in the same 1863, the work of I.M. Sechenov was published in the weekly journal "Medical Bulletin" (No. 47-48) under the new title "Reflexes of the brain".

In 1866, "Reflexes of the Brain" was published as a separate edition and, despite the arrest imposed on the entire circulation, and the threat of a lawsuit on charges of corrupting morals, this book received a huge response in the public and scientific life of Russia. It was passed from hand to hand and read to the holes.

“Physiology must recognize its undeniable father in the highly talented and equally original and bright personality of I.M. Sechenov,” K.A. wrote about him. Timiryazev.

Only in 1867, the Ministry of Justice abandoned its claims in court, because "... the open development of materialistic theories during the judicial proceedings of this case may have the consequence of spreading these theories in society, due to the arousal of special interest in the contents of this book" .

"Reflexes of the Brain" was published 16 times in Russian and was translated into French, English, Hungarian and other foreign languages.

I.P. Pavlov later wrote: “I attribute the starting point of our research to the end of 1863, to the appearance of the well-known essays by Sechenov “Reflexes of the Brain”.

A student and follower of I.P. Pavlova - Academician of the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR Pyotr Kuzmich Anokhin (1898-1974), the creator of the theory of functional systems of the body (1930), called "Reflexes ..." "the pearl of Russian science" and noted that this book was "simultaneously and a deep scientific work , and political preaching, calling for a new materialistic culture.

The unity of the organism and the external environment. THEM. Sechenov also formulated one of the most important materialistic provisions of physiology - the concept of the unity of the organism and the external environment: “The environment in which the animal exists turns out to be a factor determining the organization ... An organism without an external environment that supports its existence is impossible, therefore the environment that influences it must also be included.

He extended this idea to the causality of all manifestations of human mental activity. “Sechenov in a new way for his time

He did not put forward the idea that the whole mental life, with all its motor manifestations, is supported and stimulated by those influences that the sense organs receive from the outside, and by those irritations of the sensory nervous system that arise inside the organism ... In a completely exceptional form, in many examples it was the formative influence of environmental factors on nervous processes is shown.

THEM. Sechenov was also an active popularizer of natural science knowledge among the population. He gave public lectures, taught at the Prechistina courses for workers, was an ardent supporter of higher women's education in Russia and actively attracted women to independent scientific work in his laboratories, lectured at the Higher Women's Courses in St. Petersburg, and after moving to Moscow - at Collective lessons of the Society of educators and teachers.

Sechenov's students were Nadezhda Prokofievna Suslova (1843-1918), who became the first Russian woman to be awarded degree doctor of medicine after defending his dissertation "Additions to the physiology of the lymphatic hearts" (Zurich, 1867), and Maria Alexandrovna Bokova (1839-1929), who also defended her doctoral dissertation in Zurich (1871) and later became the wife of Ivan Mikhailovich (2).

A close friend of the Sechenov family is the great Russian actress A.V. Nezhdanova noted in her memoirs: “It fell to my lot to be in the closest friendly relations with the great scientist, wonderful person- Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov and his faithful loving friend - his wife Maria Alexandrovna ... They became for me for life the dearest, closest people ”(Fig. 3).

Rice. 3. E.N. Domracheva, M.A. Sechenov, I.M. Sechenov and A.V. Nezhdanov. Moscow. 1904

Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov created the Russian scientific physiological school. The main centers of its formation and development were two cities of its origin.

professorial activities - St. Petersburg and Moscow, at the same time, Sechenov's students subsequently headed departments at many leading universities in Russia.

Among them are physiologists: N.E. Vvedensky - at St. Petersburg University, B.F. Verigo - at Novorossiysk and Perm Universities, K.V. Voroshilov - in Kazan, A.A. Kulyabko - in Tomsk, A.F. Samoilov - at Kazan University, I.R. Tarkhanov - in the VMA, E.N. Tour - at St. Petersburg University; one of the founders of pathophysiology in Russia V.V. Pashutin - at Kazan University and VMA; the founder of the national science of nutrition M.N. Shaternikov - at Moscow University; hygienist G.V. Khlopin - at Derpt and Novorossiysk universities and VMA.

Proceedings of I.M. Sechenov had a huge impact on the development of domestic and world physiology. He became not only the "father of Russian physiology" - thanks to his research, Russia was the birthplace of scientific psychology and psychophysiological direction, brilliantly continued by the works and discoveries of Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936), the first Nobel Prize winner in our country (1904).

NOTES

(1) B Russian Empire the following academic titles were awarded: (1) adjunct, or adjunct professor - a person who is preparing to take a professorship; (2) extraordinary professor - (in the modern sense) professor of the department; (3) tenured professor - head of the department or its subdivision (course). In addition to professors, academic work was carried out by teachers: (4) assistant professors who were on staff, and (5) private docents who read separate courses that attracted the attention of students; as a rule, they did not receive remuneration; however, there was no shortage of privatdozents; it was one of the ways to get a professorship in the future.

(2) There is an opinion that I.M. Sechenov was the prototype of Kirsanov - the hero of the novel by N.G. Chernyshevsky "What to do?", and his wife M.A. Bokova and her first (fictitious) husband P.I. Bokov - the prototypes of Vera Pavlovna and Lopukhin.

LITERATURE

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IVAN MIKHAYLOVICH SETCHENOV IN THE HISTORY OF RUSSIAN AND WORLD PHYSIOLOGY

Department for the History of Medicine Peoples" Friendship University of Russia Miklukho-Maklaya str., 8, Moscow, Russia, 117198

The scientific legacy of the Great Russian scientist Ivan Mikhaylovich Setchenov (1829-1905), a founder of famous scientific school in Physiology is analyzing in this paper, paying a special attention to his contribution to Physiology of Central Nervous System (CNS), respiratory system , teaching on unity of organism and environment, and development of higher medical education.

Key words: Ivan M. Setchenov, Physiology of Central Nervous System, Physiology of respiratory system, environment, scientific schools, higher medical education.

Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov. Born on August 1 (13), 1829 - died on November 2 (15), 1905. Russian physiologist and educator, publicist, rationalist thinker, founder of the physiological school, encyclopedic scientist, evolutionary biologist, psychologist, anthropologist, anatomist, histologist, pathologist, psychophysiologist, physical chemist, endocrinologist, ophthalmologist, hematologist, narcologist, hygienist, culturologist , instrument maker, military engineer.

He believed that the Russians, just as the French consider Buffon one of the founders of their literary language, one should also read I. M. Sechenov as one of the founders of the modern Russian literary language.

Born on August 13, 1829 in the landlord family of the nobleman Mikhail Alekseevich Sechenov and his former serf Anisya Georgievna (“Egorovna”) in the village of Tepliy Stan, Kurmysh district, Simbirsk province (now the village of Sechenovo, Nizhny Novgorod region). "In childhood, he later recalled, more than my father and mother, I loved my dear nurse. Nastasya Yakovlevna caressed me, took me for a walk, saved delicacies for me from dinner, took my side in squabbles with the sisters and captivated me most of all with fairy tales, for which she was a great craftswoman.. Due to a lack of funds in a large family, he received only a home primary education under the guidance of a literacy first taught by order of the owner in a monastery just before marriage, but an intelligent and active mother, who considered mathematics necessary, natural Sciences, fluency in Russian and living foreign languages, and dreamed that her, "one of the millions of slaves", her son would become a professor.

He graduated from the Main Engineering School in 1848. He was not enrolled in the upper officer class; therefore, he could not "go through the scientific part." He was released with the rank of ensign. The request of I. M. Sechenov to enroll him in the army in the Caucasus was not satisfied, he was sent to the second reserve engineer battalion.

Two years later, Lieutenant Sechenov retired and entered the medical faculty of Moscow University as a volunteer. At the university, in addition to studying medicine, he also listened to the lectures of T. N. Granovsky and especially P. N. Kudryavtsev, which helped him become an expert in the field of cultural studies, stupidity, philosophy, theology, deontology, ancient and medieval medicine, history in general.

Any scientific device, considering it, first of all, a subject of material culture, he called "history" all his life. In the 3rd year, he became interested in psychology, which was then considered a section of theology (in Orthodoxy), theology (in other confessions) and philosophy, and this, in his words, “Moscow passion for philosophy” later played an important role in his activities. It is curious that Professor Spassky M.F. taught a course in physics, and even though Sechenov himself considered this course elementary and according to Lenz’s textbook, in our time Sechenov was considered as a student and follower of M.F. Spassky, although I.M. Sechenov, and M. F. Spassky were students of M. V. Ostrogradsky. Sechenov, who decided to devote himself to private and general pathology (anatomy and physiology), already before studying at the university, received a solid engineering and physical and mathematical education, listened to lectures by a formally tough opponent of clinical (that is, on patients) experiments, head of the department of pathological anatomy and pathological physiology "Medical star" Alexei Ivanovich Polunin, was infected with interest in topographic anatomy by the "most handsome professor" F.I. Inozemtsev, under whose guidance he began his scientific activity while still studying, and in comparative anatomy and physiology - Ivan Timofeevich Glebov.

Sechenov began to dream about physiology, especially since in his senior years he became disillusioned with the empirical medical practice of that time, not based on scientific general pathology, experimental medical practice of that time, "learning from patients", which even Polunin considered natural, but, having a solid engineering and physical -mathematical education, felt that he would be able to read physiology better than I.M. Sechenov’s favorite lecturer I.M. Sechenov, I.T. Having completed the full course of study at the insistence of Dean N.B. Anke with the right to receive a doctorate degree, Sechenov passed doctoral examinations instead of medical examinations and received the degree of doctor with honors. When he was in his 4th year, his mother suddenly died, and he decided to use the inheritance he received to fulfill his mother's dream. After successful delivery exams in 1856, Sechenov went abroad at his own expense to study physiology.

In 1856-1859 he worked in the laboratories of Johann Müller, E. Dubois-Reymond, F. Hoppe-Seyler in Berlin, Ernst Weber, O. Funke in Leipzig, K. Ludwig, with whom he had a particularly close friendship, in Vienna, recommendations of Ludwig - Robert Bunsen, Hermann Helmholtz in Heidelberg.

In Berlin, he attended courses in physics by Magnus and analytical chemistry by Rose. To study the effect of alcohol on blood gases, Sechenov designed a new device - the "blood pump", which was highly appreciated by Ludwig and all modern scientists, and which was subsequently used by many physiologists. (The original Sechenov's "blood pump" in working condition is stored in the Museum of the Department of General Physiology of St. Petersburg University). Abroad, he was friends with A. N. Beketov, S. P. Botkin, A. P. Borodin, the artist A. Ivanov, whom he assisted in working on the painting “The Appearance of Christ to the People”. Perhaps it was under the influence of the views of Ivanov and his friend that the determination of I. M. Sechenov to confirm the teaching of the Russian Orthodox Church about the bodily, in view of the unity of soul and body, the resurrection at the second coming of Christ, was strengthened by the methods of natural science.

For the course of lectures “On Animal Electricity” that amazed contemporaries at the Medico-Surgical Academy - he was attended even by people as far from medicine as he was - he was awarded the Demidov Prize of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. At the beginning of 1862, he participated in the work of the Free University, then worked in Paris in the laboratory of the "father of endocrinology" Claude Bernard, this vacation was possibly associated with arrests among people of his circle in cases of proclamations "Great Russian" and "Bow to the lord peasants from their well-wishers ". In his classic work “Physiology of the Nervous System” of 1866, he formulated in detail his doctrine of self-regulation and feedback, further developed by the theory of automatic control and cybernetics, Sechenov studied the same problems during a year's vacation in 1867 - officially about the treatment of skin allergies , possibly related to the appeal to the Senate of the academician of the Medical-Surgical Academy Isidor with a request to exile Sechenov “for humility and correction” to the Solovetsky Monastery “for predacious, soul-destructive and harmful teaching”. Most he spent this vacation in Graz, in the laboratory of his Viennese friend, the physiologist and histologist, Professor Alexander Rollet (1834-1903). While working at the Academy, he took part in organizing a research marine biological station in Sevastopol (now the A. O. Kovalevsky Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas).

Having left the academy in 1870 in protest against the “discrimination of ladies” and the ballot recommended by him I. I. Mechnikov and A. E. Golubev, he worked in the chemical laboratory of D. I. Mendeleev at St. Petersburg University and lectured at the Artists Club. In 1871-1876 he headed the Department of Physiology at the Novorossiysk University in Odessa. In 1876-1888 he was a professor in the department of anatomy, histology and physiology of the Department of Zoology of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University, where in 1888 he also organized a separate physiological laboratory. At the same time, he lectured at the Bestuzhev Higher Women's Courses, one of the founders of which he was.

Later, he taught at the women's courses at the society of teachers and educators in Moscow. At first, under the influence of Charcot’s ideas, he mistakenly believed that I. M. Sechenov’s brilliant foresights that were centuries ahead of the level of development of science of his time were explained by the state of affect, but then he himself objected to the falsifications of I. M. Sechenov’s biography, Nobel Prize winner I. P. Pavlov considered impossible to understand it correctly without knowing what is described in "What to do?" events anticipated the novel by I. M. Sechenov. It should be noted that although N. G. Chernyshevsky wrote about eight prototypes, including two women, the main prototype of Rakhmetov’s “special person” was indeed the brother-in-law of I. M. Sechenov, a political prisoner, an exiled settler, in the future - a prominent military leader of tsarist Russia , Lieutenant General, retired, Vladimir Aleksandrovich Obruchev.

But contrary to popular belief, despite the support of the women's movement, the friendship of families and the cooperation of the educators N. G. Chernyshevsky and I. M. Sechenov and the similarity of the biographies of the hero of the novel What Is To Be Done? doctors Kirsanov and I. M. Sechenov, Vera Pavlovna and wife I. M. Sechenov, who studied with him together with N. P. Suslova, later Doctor of Medicine, Surgery and Obstetrics, ophthalmologist Maria Alexandrovna Bokova (nee Obrucheva - daughter of Lieutenant General Alexander Afanasyevich Obruchev), the novel was not based on real events in the life of I. M. Sechenov. As a subtle esthete, a theatergoer (a close acquaintance of I. M. Sechenov, the playwright even wrote the work “Actors according to Sechenov”, in which he anticipated some of the discoveries of Stanislavsky), a lover of Italian opera, a music lover and a musician who supported Ivanov, Antonina Nezhdanova, M. E. Pyatnitsky , he could not share the aesthetic theory of Chernyshevsky and could not be the prototype of the hero of the novel "Fathers and Sons" by Bazarov. Rather, N. G. Chernyshevsky could consider him a prototype of Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov, and then N. G. Chernyshevsky’s choice of the name of the hero Alexander Kirsanov in the novel, which he considered the answer to “Fathers and Sons” by I. S. Turgenev, is understandable. I. M. Sechenov, as the creator of his own harmonious philosophy, could not share Chernyshevsky's metaphysics either. Opponent of any medical and social experiments on people I. M. Sechenov “Like any great scientist, he was a dissident”(quote from a letter from his relative the academician) from the point of view of both bureaucracy, and liberals, and "nihilists".

In 1887, by a decree of the Tver diocesan court, the marriage of Maria and Peter Bokov was annulled, after which I. M. Sechenov and M. A. Bokova sealed their long-standing de facto union with the sacrament of the wedding. They turned the Obruchev family estate Klepenino into a model estate in Russia. Sechenov is not only the grandfather of Russian cybernetics, but also the great-uncle of the famous scientist in the field of cybernetics, computer technology, mathematical linguistics, the successor of research and pedagogical activity I. M. Sechenov in the field of theoretical, mathematical and cybernetic biology, including the endocrine system, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences A. A. Lyapunov. A. A. Lyapunov actively participated in the fight against, largely based on Sechenov’s official biographies, which had nothing to do with the life and works of I. M. Sechenov, “Soviet creative Darwinism” (that is, in essence, anti-Darwinism, claiming that on the example of plants and animals, it can be proved that all the acquired qualities of both the leaders of the party and the state, and the exploiters and enemies of the people are inherited by all descendants, regardless of upbringing and lifestyle, even if “the son is not responsible for the father”), which has nothing to do with I P. Pavlov "Pavlovian physiology", "Soviet nervism", "creation of a new man (in the camps)", "Michurin biology", occult teleology and vitalism, which in the USSR were called "materialism" and attributed to I. M. Sechenov and I. P. Pavlov.

Formulated long before Max Weber's Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism, I. M. Sechenov's teaching on the connection between ethics and the development of the national economy and that, in order to achieve true free will, lay people, like monks, must continuously work on themselves and strive for their individual the ideal of a knight or lady, has nothing to do with the "Order of the Sword" and the "creation of a new man" in the interpretation. However, Joseph Stalin in November 1941 named Sechenov among those who embody the spirit of the people.

Even during the lifetime of I. M. Sechenov, who considered his works as a phenomenon of Russian literature idolized by him, just as the French consider Buffon one of the creators of the literary language, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin considered the most striking evidence of a decline in the mental level of attempts to somehow reflect clear filigree formulations of such an unsurpassed master of the word as I. M. Sechenov, even by means of music. But the official biographers of Sechenov in the USSR reformulated the essence of Sechenov’s works in the standard vein of propaganda newspaper clichés of the 1950s and attributed all his successes to the “party leadership of his scientific work”, ignoring his friendship with A. A. Grigoriev, I. S. Turgenev , V. O. Klyuchevsky, D. V. Grigorovich, the Botkin family, including friend V. P. Botkin - both they and I. M. Sechenov were never Marxists (that is, supporters of a comprehensive irrational "dialectical materialism” by I. Dietzgen, which is radically different from the rationalist “materialist dialectic” of Marx himself).

Biographers of I.M. Sechenov, therefore, with the aim of organizing repressions against the academician of numerous relatives of I.M. serves as cybernetics”, who declared cybernetics a pseudoscience, and scientific method I. M. Sechenov - "mechanism turning into idealism."

I. M. Sechenov, who received a solid engineering and physical and mathematical education and effectively applied it in his scientific and pedagogical activities, of course, also used the approach that was later called cybernetics. He himself prepared, although he did not publish, a course in higher mathematics. According to Academician A. N. Krylov, of all biologists, only Helmholtz, also known as a great mathematician, could know mathematics as well as Sechenov. Sechenov’s student A.F. Samoilov recalled: “It seems to me that the appearance of Helmholtz - a physiologist, physiologist-philosopher and the appearance of I.M. Sechenov are close, related to each other both in the nature of the circle of thoughts that attracted and captured them, and in the ability to assert position of a sober natural scientist in areas where the speculation of philosophers has hitherto reigned. I. M. Sechenov - President of the First International Psychological Congress in Paris in 1889.

Since 1889 - assistant professor, since 1891 - professor of physiology at Moscow University. In 1901 he retired, but continued experimental work, as well as teaching at the Prechistensky courses for workers in 1903-04.

Sechenov's main works:

"Reflexes of the brain" - 1863
"Physiology of the nervous system" - 1866
"Elements of Thought" - 1879
"On the absorption of CO2 by solutions of salts and strong acids" - 1888
"Physiology of nerve centers" - 1891
"On alkalis of blood and lymph" - 1893
"Physiological criteria for setting the length of the working day" - 1895
"Instrument for fast and accurate analysis of gases" - 1896
"Portable breathing apparatus" - 1900, together with M. N. Shaternikov.
"Essay on the working movements of man" 1901
"Objective Thought and Reality" - 1902
"Autobiographical Notes" - 1904.

Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov was an outstanding scientist, psychologist, physician, biologist, physicist and honored professor. is inextricably linked with constant learning, self-development and science. It is not for nothing that he is called a genius, the creator and father of Russian physiology! He lived for 76 years, of which about 60 devoted to education. How did the life of the future professor begin, and what did his love for knowledge lead to? The following is a brief biography of Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov.

Childhood and youth

The biography of Ivan Sechenov began in the village of Teply Stan, Nizhny Novgorod Region (now it is the village of Sechenov). In 1829, on August 13, the ninth child was born in the noble Sechenov family. Ivan almost did not remember his father, he was only 10 years old when he died. However, it was the father who inspired the children from childhood that education is the most important thing (he himself was poorly educated, like his mother), and children should treat their teachers as benefactors.

Ivan, at the insistence of his older brother, it was decided to send to an engineering school. That is why he lived in the village until the age of 14, studying at home, and was the only one of all who learned foreign languages. Further, Sechenov's biography will be connected with permanent education.

From the memoirs of Ivan Sechenov:

I was a very ugly boy, black, shaggy, and severely disfigured by smallpox, but I must have been not stupid, very cheerful and possessed the art of imitating gaits and voices, which often amused my family and friends. There were no boys of the same age either in the families of acquaintances or in the household; I grew up all my life among women; therefore I had neither boyish manners, nor contempt for the female sex; moreover, he was taught the rules of politeness. On all these grounds, I enjoyed the love of the family and the goodwill of my acquaintances, not excluding ladies and young ladies.

Consider how Sechenov's life developed further.

Education

At the age of 14, Ivan Mikhailovich entered the school of military engineers and left for St. Petersburg. The school had 4 junior classes, where training lasted 4 years, and 2 officer classes, where they got after. The institution supported the military regime: getting up at 5 am, studying from 7 o'clock and drill. The boys also took an oath and were already considered civil servants, which saved them from corporal punishment.

In the engineering school, the emphasis was on mathematics, drawing, algebra, geometry and trigonometry. In high school, he studied analytical mechanics, integral calculus, and French literature. But the main subject, which was all 6 years of study, was fortification (military engineering science of strengthening the terrain for combat.) However, Sechenov was not fascinated by engineering, even then he passionately fell in love with one subject - physics, where he made great strides. In high school, the boy showed an interest in chemistry. As Ivan Mikhailovich himself admits in his memoirs:

Mathematics was given to me, and if I got from the engineering school straight to the university to the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, a decent physicist could have come out of me, but fate, as we will see, decided otherwise.

After graduating from an engineering school in 1848 with the rank of non-commissioned officer, Sechenov was assigned to Kiev, in the 2nd reserve engineer battalion. Two years later, the newly-minted officer resigns, with the firm intention of going to study medicine. This step was prompted by his acquaintance with the young widow Olga Alexandrovna, a very educated girl and passionate about medicine. As Sechenov himself recalls an episode of his biography:

I entered her house as a young man, floating so inertly along the channel into which fate had thrown me, without a clear consciousness of where it might lead me, and I left her house with a ready life plan, knowing where to go and what to do. Who, if not she, led me out of a situation that could become a dead loop for me, indicating the possibility of a way out. To what, if not her suggestions, I owe the fact that I went to the university - and precisely the one that she considered advanced! - to learn medicine and help others. It is possible, finally, that some of her influence was reflected in my later service to the interests of women who were making their way to an independent path.

With this intention in 1850, Sechenov entered the Moscow Medical University. He is waiting for 6 years of interesting learning, first discoveries and full awareness of the goals of his life. Although the stingy medical theory at first disappointed the future scientist, he perfectly mastered biology, anatomy, surgery and physiology. In the third year of university, Sechenov is fond of psychology. At the same time, he is attracted by philosophy. Sechenov studied very willingly, which eventually allowed him to graduate from the university in the top three students. After the medical university in 1856, Ivan Mikhailovich left to study in Berlin.

Sechenov will stay abroad for 4 years, where his career will flourish.

Career

In Berlin, the scientist works for a year, studying physics and chemistry. There he begins to work in well-known laboratories. Next - Paris, where the discovery of the so-called central inhibition was made - special mechanisms in the brain of a frog. Further publications in medical journals follow, the work "Reflexes of the brain" opened the term "reflex" to a wide audience. With this publication, the career of the future professor of physiology officially began.

In 1860, the scientist returned to St. Petersburg and defended his dissertation, having received a degree. He would work for 10 years at the Academy, making many discoveries in medicine and physics.

In 1869, he was already a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (after a number of discoveries in the theory of physiological solutions). At this time, he is the head of the Department of Zoology, organizes his own physiological laboratory.

In 1889, the professor became president of the first International Psychological Congress in Paris, at the same time receiving the title of assistant professor at Moscow University.

In 1901, I. M. Sechenov received the title of professor of physiology and officially retired. Sechenov Ivan Mikhailovich will die in 4 years.

Personal life

Considering further a brief biography of I. M. Sechenov, it can be noted that upon his return from Berlin in St. Petersburg, he met Maria Alexandrovna Bokova. The girl dreamed of becoming a doctor, which was impossible in Russia. The road to science was then closed to women. Sechenov was always outraged by such injustice, he willingly takes the girl as a listener to his lectures. At the end of the course, he invites her to write scientific work. Maria will complete the work and successfully defend her doctoral dissertation in Germany. Later, this purposeful student will become his wife.

Proceedings

The professor worked in several main areas: physiology, biology and psychology. During his long scientific career, many articles were published in journals and several books were written.

The biography of I. M. Sechenov and the main works will be considered below:

the book "Reflexes of the Brain" (1866) (now this book can be bought at any bookstore, it was reprinted in 2015);
"Physiology of the nervous system" (1866);
the book "Elements of Thought" (1879), republished in 2014;
"On the absorption of CO 2 by salt solutions and strong acids" (1888);
"Physiology of nerve centers" (1891);
"On alkalis of blood and lymph" (1893);
"Instrument for fast and accurate analysis of gases" (1896);
"Portable breathing apparatus" (1900);
"Essay on the working movements of man" (1901);
"Objective Thought and Reality" (1902);
the book "Notes of a Russian Professor of Medicine" - an autobiographical work, the scientist's memories of childhood and years of study, republished in 2014;
"Autobiographical notes" (1904).

Achievements

Sechenov's biography and the scientist's contribution to science are still of interest to people all over the world. Ivan Mikhailovich created a physiological school, which during its existence has made a number of discoveries that are most important for mankind. One of them is the concept of non-specific brain systems.

A lot of research in the field of medicine led to the discovery that red blood cells carry oxygen from the lungs to the tissues, and carbon dioxide from the tissues to the lungs. As a result of these discoveries, Sechenov developed the first portable breathing apparatus.

Professor Sechenov devoted a lot of time to psychology. His scientific work "Psychology of Thought" is still one of the most important in the study of human thinking.

One of the major achievements in the field of biology is the discovery of inhibitory action. He also identified the cause of motor reflexes.

Awards and titles

During his long life, Academician I.M. Sechenov made many important discoveries, many of which we still use in science and education. The streets and the institute are now named after Sechenov, a monument has been erected to him, his works are reprinted annually.

A scientist who lived more than a century ago "made" an exact science out of physiology. His discoveries in medicine made it possible to make a huge step forward in the future. The titles and degrees of a scientist are listed below:

Honored Professor of Moscow University;
Academician of the Medico-Surgical Academy;
Corresponding Member for Biological Discharge;
honorary member of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences;
Cavalier of the Imperial I degree;
Cavalier of the Imperial Order of St. Anne III degree;
Cavalier of the Imperial Order of St. Vladimir III degree;
scientific degree of doctor of medicine;
scientific degree of doctor of zoology.

, humanist, educator, philosopher and rationalist thinker, founder of the physiological school; Honored Ordinary Professor, Corresponding Member for Biological Discharge (-), Honorary Member () of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Cavalier of the orders of St. Stanislaus, 1st class, St. Anna, 3rd class, and St. Vladimir, 3rd class.

Merits

Turned physiology into an exact science and a clinical discipline used for diagnosis, choice of therapy, prognosis, development of any new methods of treatment and medicines, protection of a person from dangerous and harmful factors, exclusion of any experiments on white people in medicine, public life, all branches of science and the national economy. In his classic work “Reflexes of the Brain” (1866), written for the Sovremennik magazine, N. A. Nekrasova substantiated the reflex nature of unconscious activity and argued in favor of a similar nature of conscious activity, suggesting that physiological processes underlie all mental phenomena , which can be studied by objective methods, and which are determined by the interaction of cells, organisms and populations with the external (the main biological law of Roulier-Sechenov) and the internal environment. Censorship throughout the life of the scientist forbade the publication of the main conclusion of this work: “only with my developed view of human actions in the latter, the highest of human virtues is possible - all-forgiving love, that is, complete descent to one’s neighbor.” Free will is manifested by a purposeful change by each individual person of his external and internal environment. The task of society is not to prevent a person from becoming a knight in this way. If modern physics, chemistry, mathematics cannot help humanity in this and/or explain the phenomena studied by psychology, physiology and biology, then physiologists themselves must create the necessary physical and chemical theories or set appropriate tasks for chemists and physicists. Acting as a defender of the traditions of classical medical education "on the side of the" ancient "(doctors-philosophers of antiquity) against the" new "" ("Battle of the Books", Jonathan Swift) opponent of R. Virchow and supporters of his concept of "cellular pathology", for the first time in the world formulated the doctrine of the anatomical and molecular principles of physiology, in the presentation of which, recognizing the decisive importance in normal physiology of the anatomical principle of the cellular principle of R. Virchow, which is the highest stage in the development of the anatomical principle, emphasized the importance of the molecular principle as the only possible general principle of (clinical) pathophysiology, since, in particular, cell differentiation, the formation of organs and tissues, the exchange of signals between organs, tissues, individual cells are carried out in the environment of biological fluids, and usually pathological processes are interconnected with changes in the chemical composition of these biological fluids. Rejecting the previously dominant theory of a comprehensive system of inhibitory nerves, he proved its absence and substantiated the theory of transmission of inhibitory signals by changing the chemical composition of biological fluids, especially blood plasma. He studied renal circulation, digestion, gas exchange in the lungs, the respiratory function of the blood, discovered the role of carboxyhemoglobin in respiration and in the venous system. He discovered the phenomena of lens fluorescence, central inhibition, summation in the nervous system, the "Sechenov reflex", established the presence of rhythmic bioelectrical processes in the central nervous system, substantiated the importance of metabolic processes in the implementation of excitation. For the first time in the world, he localized the center of inhibition in the brain (the thalamic center of inhibition, the Sechenov center), discovered the influence of the reticular formation of the brain on spinal reflexes. Together with his wife, he first translated into Russian Charles Darwin's book "The Origin of Man and Sexual Selection" and was the largest popularizer of evolutionary doctrine in Russia. Creator of the objective theory of behavior, founder of modern molecular physiology, clinical pathophysiology, clinical laboratory diagnostics, psychophysiology, narcology, hematology, neuroendocrinology, neuroimmunology, molecular medicine and biology, proteomics, bioelementology, medical biophysics, medical cybernetics, aerospace medicine, occupational physiology, age, comparative and evolutionary physiology and biochemistry. The forerunner ("uncle", as he called himself) of Russian cosmism, the synthetic theory of evolution and the creation of modern cellular technologies for the formation of artificial organs and the restoration of organs. Scientifically substantiated the need for outdoor activities ("Sechenov effect") and the duration of the working day is not more than six, maximum eight hours. In addition, he established the law of the solubility of gases in aqueous electrolyte solutions. “... Physiology must recognize its undeniable father in the highly talented and equally original and bright personality of Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov,” wrote the physiologist and historian of science K. A. Timiryazev. - ... not a single Russian scientist had such a wide and beneficial influence on Russian science and the development of the scientific spirit in our society ... ". Ivan Petrovich Pavlov also considered Sechenov "the father of Russian physiology." Joseph Stalin in November named Sechenov among those who personify the spirit of the people, and for whom "brothers and sisters" should fight. Sechenov's works influenced the development of psychology, medicine, biology, natural science, oil and gas production, the gas transportation industry, the theory of knowledge, human rights, women's, labor and trade union movements.

Biography

Abroad, Sechenov not only dispelled the ideas that existed even among the best German scientists about the “inability of the round-headed Russian race” to understand modern physiology, but also prepared a doctoral dissertation “Materials for the future physiology of alcohol intoxication”, one of the first in Russian, which he successfully defended in 1860 at the Medical and Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg, where by that time I. T. Glebov had been transferred by vice president. In the same year, at the invitation of I. T. Glebov, he began working at the department of physiology of this academy, where he soon organized a physiological laboratory - one of the first in Russia. For the course of lectures “On Animal Electricity” that amazed contemporaries at the Medico-Surgical Academy - even such people far from medicine as I. S. Turgenev and N. G. Chernyshevsky attended it - he was awarded the Demidov Prize of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. At the beginning of 1862, he participated in the work of the Free University, then worked in Paris in the laboratory of the “father of endocrinology” Claude Bernard, this vacation was possibly associated with arrests among people of his circle in cases of the Velikoruss proclamations and “Bow to the lord peasants from their well-wishers ". In his classic work "Physiology of the Nervous System" of 1866, he formulated in detail his doctrine of self-regulation and feedback, further developed by the theory of automatic control and cybernetics, Sechenov also investigated these same problems during a year's vacation in 1867 - officially about the treatment of skin allergies , possibly related to the appeal to the Senate of the academician of the Medical-Surgical Academy Isidor with a request to exile Sechenov "for humility and correction" to the Solovetsky Monastery "for predacious soul-destructive and harmful teaching." He spent most of this vacation in Graz, in the laboratory of his Viennese friend, the physiologist and histologist Professor Alexander Rollet (1834-1903). While working at the Academy, he took part in the organization of a research marine biological station in Sevastopol (now).

Sechenov translated a lot, edited translations of books by foreign scientists in the field of physiology, physics, medical chemistry, biology, history of science, pathology, and he radically revised works on physiology and pathology and supplemented them with the results of his own research. For example, in 1867, Ivan Mikhailovich's manual "Physiology of the Sense Organs" was published. Revised work "Anatomy und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane" von A. Fick. 1862-1864. Vision", and in -1872, under his editorship, a translation of Charles Darwin's work "The Descent of Man" was published in Russia. The merits of I. M. Sechenov are not only the spread of Darwinism in Russia, where, for example, A. N. Beketov came to evolutionary ideas independently of Wallace and Darwin, but also the synthesis of physicochemical and evolutionary theories carried out by him for the first time in the world and the application of ideas Darwinism to the problems of physiology and psychology. I. M. Sechenov can rightly be considered a forerunner of the modern development of evolutionary physiology and evolutionary biochemistry in Russia.

The name of Sechenov is associated with the creation of the first All-Russian physiological scientific school, which was formed and developed at the Medico-Surgical Academy, Novorossiysk, St. Petersburg and Moscow Universities. At the Medical-Surgical Academy, independently of the Kazan School, Ivan Mikhailovich introduced the method of demonstrating an experiment into lecture practice. This contributed to the emergence of a close connection between the pedagogical process and research work and to a large extent predetermined the Sechenov's success on the path of creating their own scientific school.

The physiological laboratory organized by the scientist at the Medico-Surgical Academy was the center of research in the field of not only physiology, but also pharmacology, toxicology and clinical medicine.

Brain research. Central braking

Even in the "Theses" for his doctoral dissertation, Sechenov put forward a position on the originality of reflexes, the centers of which lie in the brain, and a number of ideas that contributed to the subsequent study of the brain.

The experiments were demonstrated by Sechenov to Bernard, in Berlin and Vienna to Dubois-Reymond, Ludwig and E. Brucke. The thalamic center of inhibition of the reflex reaction was called the "Sechenov center", and the phenomenon of central inhibition was called Sechenov's inhibition. An article in which Sechenov described the phenomenon of central inhibition appeared in print in 1866. According to Charles Sherrington (), from that moment on, the assumption about the inhibitory effect of one part of the nervous system on another, expressed by Hippocrates, has become an accepted doctrine.

In the same year, Sechenov published Supplements to the Teaching on Nerve Centers Delaying Reflected Movements, in which the question was discussed whether there are specific inhibitory mechanisms in the brain or whether the action of inhibitory centers extends to all muscle systems and functions. Thus, the concept of non-specific brain systems was first put forward.

Later, he gives public lectures "On the Elements of Visual Thinking", which in 1878 he revised and published under the title "Elements of Thought". In -1882, Sechenov began a new cycle of work on central braking. They discovered spontaneous oscillations of biocurrents in the medulla oblongata.

Sechenov and psychology

Ivan Mikhailovich studied in depth various areas of philosophy and psychology, argued with representatives of various philosophical and psychological trends - P. L. Lavrov, Konstantin Kavelin, G. Struve. In 1873, "Psychological Studies" was published, combining "Reflexes of the Brain" (4th edition), objections to Kavelin and the article "To whom and how to develop psychology." Sechenov applied psychology in teaching and social activities, participated in the work of new jury trials as a juror and was friends with many well-known judicial figures, was a world mediator in disputes between peasants and landowners. The most important significance of Sechenov's contribution to psychology consisted in "... a radical shift in the starting point of psychological thinking from directly given phenomena of consciousness, which for centuries was considered the first reality for the cognizing mind, to objective behavior," wrote Mikhail Yaroshevsky. It was, in the words of Ivan Pavlov, "... truly for that time an extraordinary attempt ... to imagine our subjective world purely physiologically."

In the 1890s, Sechenov presented a series of works on problems of psychophysiology and the theory of knowledge (“Impressions and Reality”,; “On Objective Thinking from a Physiological Point of View”,), significantly reworks the epistemological treatise “Elements of Thought”.

Based on the achievements of the physiology of the sense organs and the study of the functions of the motor apparatus, Ivan Mikhailovich develops ideas about the muscle as an organ for reliable knowledge of the spatio-temporal relations of things. According to Sechenov, sensory signals sent by a working muscle make it possible to build images of external objects, as well as to relate objects to each other and thus serve as the bodily basis for coordination of movements and elementary forms of thinking. These ideas about muscle sensitivity stimulated the development of the modern theory of the mechanism of sensory perception. For the first time, “muscular feeling” (proprioception) was discovered by I. M. Sechenov long before the President of the British Royal Society (analogous to the Academy of Sciences) Sherrington, who recognized the priority of the “Russian scientist”, but in 1932 he was single-handedly awarded after the death of our genius, awarded only to living researchers Nobel Prize for the results obtained by him and I. M. Sechenov.

Sechenov defends the rationalistic interpretation of all neuropsychic manifestations (including consciousness and will) and the approach to the organism as a whole, which was accepted by modern physiology and psychology. V. I. Lenin, in his work “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism”, formally directed only against a mutual friend of I. M. Sechenov and Karl Ludwig W. Ostwald, criticizing G. V. Plekhanov, declares the theory of conventional signs of Helmholtz and Sechenov, which G. V. Plekhanov, agnosticism.

Memory

The grave of I. M. Sechenov at the Novodevichy cemetery

On the initiative of Pavlov, who was not a student of I. M. Sechenov, but considered himself his follower and often met with him on the business of congresses of natural scientists and doctors, under the leadership of Pavlov's Society of Russian Doctors, starting from 1907, annual ceremonial meetings were held dedicated to the memory Sechenov. Speaking at a meeting dedicated to the centenary of Sechenov on December 29, 1929, the year of the death of his widow, Academician Pavlov emphasized: “Without Ivanov Mikhailovich, with their sense of dignity and duty, any state is doomed to death from within, regardless of any Dneprostroy and Volkhovstroy. Because the state should not consist of machines, not of bees and ants, but of representatives of the highest species of the animal kingdom, Homo sapiens.
The village of Teply Stan, where Sechenov was born, now bears his name - Sechenovo. The local history museum named after Sechenov was opened in the village, a monument was erected to him.
Sechenov crater on the far side of the Moon.
Monument-bust to I. M. Sechenov in a garden in Leningrad (1935; sketch by I. F. Bezpalov)
The name of the scientist was given in 1955 to his alma mater - the former medical faculty of Moscow University - which is now called the First Moscow State Medical University. I. M. Sechenov. A monument-bust was erected near the institute.
() is named after him.
In honor of I. M. Sechenov, the Crimean Republican Research Institute of Physical Methods of Treatment and Medical Climatology named after I. M. Sechenov of the Ministry of Health of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in Yalta was named. On the initiative of A.E. Shcherbak and N.A. Semashko, the former Romanov Research Institute of Physical Methods of Treatment, which arose in 1914 in the city of Sevastopol, was named after the great Russian physiologist I.M. Sechenov in 1921 as a symbol of the fact that his ideas were the fundamental basis for elucidating the reflex mechanism of the influence of physiotherapeutic and climatic factors on the body. I. M. Sechenov came to the Professor's Corner and to the village of Lazurnoe.
In Yalta - boarding house named after Sechenov
In the city of Essentuki - a sanatorium named after I. M. Sechenov
Since 1944, the I.M. Sechenov memorial medal has been awarded in the USSR. Since 1992, the Russian Academy of Sciences has been awarding gold medal named after I. M. Sechenov by domestic scientists for major theoretical work in the field of physiology.
In 1956, the USSR Academy of Sciences established the I.M. Sechenov Prize, which is awarded to scientists for outstanding work in the field of physiology. IN different years its laureates were physiologist V.N. and others.
Russian Physiological Journal named after I. M. Sechenov
St. Petersburg Society of Physiologists, Biochemists, Pharmacologists. I. M. Sechenova
In St. Petersburg, at the Technological Institute-I metro station, a bas-relief with a portrait of I. M. Sechenov (1955) was placed
In Odessa, on the building of the Odessa National University, where the scientist worked, a memorial plaque was installed with the inscription: In this building in 1871−1876. the great Russian physiologist Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov worked.
In 1955, Poluektov Lane in Moscow, in which the scientist lived, was renamed Sechenovsky.
Sechenov Street in Kiev, where he served in the engineer battalion.
Sechenov street in Minsk
Sechenov street in Astana
Sechenov street in Tashkent
Sechenov Street in Bishkek
Sechenov street in Astrakhan
Sechenov Street and Sechenov Lane in Voronezh
Sechenov street in the city of Liski
Sechenov Lane in Borisoglebsk
Sechenov street in Rostov-on-Don.
Sechenov street in

Sechenov, Ivan Mikhailovich(1829–1905), Russian physiologist, creator of the first physiological school in Russia, founder of the theory of mental regulation of behavior and the new psychology. Corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1869).

Born on August 1 (13), 1829 in the village of Teply Stan, Simbirsk province (now Sechenovo, Nizhny Novgorod region). younger child in the family of a nobleman, his mother was from a peasant woman. He received his primary education at home.

In 1843 he entered the Main Engineering School in St. Petersburg. He graduated in 1848. He did not last long military service, and, having retired, in 1850 he entered the Moscow University at the Faculty of Medicine. In the 4th year, he began to seriously study physiology with Ivan Timofeevich Glebov (1806–1884), a scientist who had a significant impact on the development of Russian medical science and the education of Russian scientists, vice-president of the St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy (1857). At the same time, Sechenov became interested in psychology. Physiology's attempts to study the brain were considered unpromising at that time, but even then Sechenov dreamed of creating a special "medical" psychology at the intersection of philosophy, psychology and medicine, based on experience and taking into account the functions of the brain system.

Serious study during his student years did not deplete the entire reserve of young Sechenov's seething energy. He became close to the literary circle of Apollon Grigoriev, which, in addition to poetry readings, was famous for its cheerful revels. Ultimately, for Sechenov, participation in these revels was not in vain, he became interested in the problem of the effect of alcohol on the human body and already in his junior years wrote a research paper on the physiology of alcohol intoxication and the role of vodka in the life of Russian people. This topic was subsequently developed in his doctoral dissertation. After graduating from the university in 1856, he went to Germany for four years at his own expense, where at that time there was the most progressive physical and chemical school in physiology, and there he prepared his doctoral dissertation. Materials for the future physiology of alcohol intoxication. He defended it in 1860 at the Medico-Surgical (later Military Medical) Academy.

From 1860 he worked at the Department of Physiology of the Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg, where he organized one of the first physiological laboratories in Russia, where not only physiological research was carried out, but also work in the field of pharmacology, toxicology and clinical medicine. His experimental activities covered a wide range of problems, in particular, he investigated the patterns of dissolution, binding and transfer carbon dioxide blood; the study of gas exchange allowed him to explain the death of aeronauts in a balloon and lay the foundation for aviation physiology. Introduced into practice the method of demonstrating the experiment.

In 1871-1876 he headed the Department of Physiology at the Novorossiysk University (Odessa). In 1876 he returned to St. Petersburg, where he also organized a laboratory. He was one of the founders of the Bestuzhev Higher Women's Courses.

In 1888 he moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow, where he married his common-law wife M.A. Bokova. From 1889 Privatdozent, from 1891 professor of physiology at Moscow University until his resignation in 1901.

In 1889 he was elected one of the honorary chairmen of the First International Psychological Congress in Paris.

He gave lectures at the club of doctors on Bolshaya Dmitrovka, at the Physiological Institute and public lectures at the Prechistensky courses for workers.

His experimental studies laid the foundation for the modern doctrine of the reflex nature of mental processes. In his now classic work Reflexes of the brain(1866) substantiated the reflex nature of conscious and unconscious activity. Sechenov showed that since reflexes are impossible without an external stimulus, mental activity is stimulated by stimuli that act on the sense organs. At the same time, Sechenov supplemented the doctrine of reflexes with a significant addition, considering the influence of previous influences, and not just directly acting ones.

Experimental confirmation of the hypothesis about the influence of the centers of the brain on motor activity was obtained by him as early as 1862 in Paris, in the laboratory of C. Bernard. Sechenov discovered that chemical stimulation of the medulla oblongata and optic tubercles with salt crystals delayed the reflex motor reaction of the frog's limb. The thalamic center of inhibition of the reflex reaction was subsequently called the "Sechenov center", and the phenomenon of central inhibition - Sechenov's inhibition. His main discovery of central inhibition (i.e., the inhibitory influence of brain centers on reflexes) was inspired by the idea of explaining the mechanisms of consciousness and will.

A strong-willed person determines the ability to resist unwanted impulses and act according to one's own program. And this, according to Sechenov, is possible when the brake centers are turned on. The action delayed by these centers, as it were, goes deep into the brain and is stored there in the form of a thought. The preservation of traces in the central nervous system acts as the basis of memory, inhibition - as a mechanism for the selective orientation of behavior, the work of the "reinforcing mechanism of the brain" - as a substratum of motivation.

Sechenov proposed a plan for building a new objective psychology. Prior to this, it was believed that psychological (or mental) phenomena can only be known from within. According to Sechenov, the inner plan of human behavior can be known using the same methods by which science learns other forms of life. He rejected the version of cognition as a direct experience of the subject, because just like the laws of motion, the laws that give rise to experiences are not given directly to a person. The illusion of the immobility of the earth, which is directly felt by a person - of the same kind as the perception of mental phenomena - one thing is their direct experience, and another - the laws that give rise to these experiences. They can only be discovered indirectly, just as scientists in physics or astronomy calculate the trajectories of atoms or planets. This assumption ran counter to the then generally accepted version of mental life, that it is the immediacy of its consciousness (or experience) that serves as the boundary that separates this sphere from other aspects of being. Sechenov believed that the illusion of the immediacy of the psyche arises as a result of the late development of the subject. This phase is preceded by the development of the world around the child. Mentally regulated actions resemble reflexes in that they are based and their root cause is direct contact with the outside world. Such are the ability to see, hear, control movements, etc. But, in addition, the child also has thinking, at first objective, i.e. the child perceives objects, thinks about them, establishes relationships and draws conclusions (inferences). Of the external, objectively observed, they "go inside" due to the mechanism of inhibition, remaining in the brain, in order to later reappear in similar situations. The personality is also formed: first, the child acts on the orders of adults; then he forms ideas about himself as an internal center, from where commands now come. It was an innovative idea of the relationship between the external actions of a person and his internal mental acts. This process of transforming the external into the internal is called internalization.

By 1863–1868, the final formation of Sechenov's physiological school dates back. For a number of years he and his students studied the physiology of intercentral relations. The most significant results of these studies are published in his work Physiology of the nervous system (1866).

In 1871–1872, under his editorship, a translation of Charles Darwin's work was published in Russia. Human Origins, which served as the development of evolutionary physiology in Russia.

Sechenov was absorbed in the analysis of the fundamental problems of the methodology of scientific knowledge. The originality of his position lay in the fact that he did not follow the traditional path from ideas about scientific thought to natural scientific ideas developed on its basis, i.e. theories, hypotheses, etc., and in the opposite direction, using experimentally obtained facts concerning the psychophysiological apparatus of a person, used to explain the structure and functioning of thinking. The result of a huge amount of empirical material and an innovative method was the work Elements of Thought, published back in St. Petersburg in 1878 in the journal Vestnik Evropy (2nd ed., 1903).

In 1904 Sechenov completed his Autobiographical notes.

Other writings: Selected writings, M., 1935; Selected philosophical and psychological works. M., 1947; Physiology of nerve centers. From lectures given at the Meeting of Physicians in Moscow in 1889–1990. M., 1952.

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Sechenov and his discoveries. From the history of medicine. Life of great doctors. Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov. Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov - an outstanding Russian physiologist, the founder of medical psychology as a science

Childhood and youth

Education

Career

Personal life

Proceedings

Achievements

Awards and titles

Merits

Biography

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Sechenov and psychology

Memory

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