Oleksandr Repriov was an outstanding Ukrainian pathophysiologist, the founder of the Kharkiv Scientific School of Pathophysiologists, and the founder of Ukrainian endocrinology. He created one of the first, largest and most authoritative scientific schools, which made an invaluable contribution to the formation, establishment, development and dissemination of pathophysiology in the country. It produced more than 20 professors who became founders and heads of departments and divisions in many cities (Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipro, Moscow, Leningrad, etc.) and their own well-known schools (D. O. Alpern, S. M. Leites, S. H. Genes, M. M. Pavlov, B. A. Shatsillo, F. M. Bricker, E. Y. Sterkin, I. P. Mishchenko, microbiologist D. P. Griniov, pharmacologists Y. Y. Postoev and O. I. Cherkes, etc.)
Although the Kharkiv Department had existed for more than 20 years before O. Repriov's arrival, and its founder, Professor I. Obolenskyi and his follower, Professor S. Kostiurin, graduates of the Military Medical Academy, students of M. Rudnev and V. Pashutin, who made an invaluable contribution to its development, the merit of creating the Kharkiv Scientific School of Pathophysiologists belongs to O. Repriov. Since O. Repriov was a student of the founder of pathophysiology V. Pashutin, the Kharkiv Scientific School of Pathophysiologists is considered a branch of the Pashutin School.
O. Repriov left a deep mark on science. His scientific developments on the problems of starvation, metabolic pathology, and especially the pathology of the endocrine system are widely known, thanks to which he was named the "father of domestic endocrinology" and "Nestor of domestic endocrinology". O.V. Repriov comes from the hereditary nobility of the Vladimir province. He was born on August 26, 1853 in the family of a sea officer. He received his secondary education at the Vladimir Gymnasium, which he failed to complete because he was not allowed to take the graduation exams due to his political unreliability. He tried for a long time to get permission to take the final exams, which he finally passed in Tambov in 1873. That same year he entered the Medical and Surgical Academy (later the Military Medical Academy) in St. Petersburg. After graduating from the Academy in 1878 with a medical degree, he was sent to the active army in Bulgaria by order of the Chief Military Medical Department, where he remained until halfway through July 1879, that is, until the signing of the peace with Turkey. After returning from the theater of military operations to St. Petersburg, he was enlisted in the reserve as an official of the Military Medical Department. In 1880, after passing the exam for the degree of Doctor of Medicine, he was appointed a resident at the Penza Regional Hospital, where he was a head of the maternity ward, women's and children's departments, and at the same time taught at the paramedic school and the midwifery school.
In 1886, he moved to St. Petersburg, where he held a number of medical and administrative positions and at the same time began intensive scientific work in the laboratory of V. V. Pashutin, the founder of pathophysiology and the founder of the Department of General Pathology at the Military Medical Academy (1879). In 1888, O. Repriov defended his thesis on the experimental study of metabolism during pregnancy. In the same year, after delivering two trial lectures, he was awarded the title of private associate professor of the Department of General Pathology by the Academy Conference, and from 1890 he was a prosector of the same department until July 1891, i.e. until his promotion to extraordinary professor of the Department of General and Experimental Pathology at Tomsk University. In 1890-1891, in connection with the appointment of V.V. Pashutin as the head of the Military Medical Academy, he temporarily acted as a professor. In 1892, he was promoted to the rank of full professor in Tomsk and in the summer of 1895 was transferred to Kharkiv.
Prof. Y. Y. Postoiev, a student of O. V. Repriov, in his anniversary article dedicated to the 50th anniversary of his teaching career (1928), wrote: "...O. V. was very interested in medical circles as a student of Pashutin and as a representative of the Department of General Pathology, this philosophy of medicine. The introductory lecture is a touchstone for each new member of the faculty: it can be said to decide the fate of the professor; O. V. was a winner. His lecture "On Harmony during Illness" attracted a huge number of students.
O. V. Repriov with students (1918). Far left is M. M. Pavlov, far right is O. I. Cherkes, next to him is D. O. Alpern. To the right and to the left of O. V. Repriov are the department staff members
Almost the entire medical faculty, headed by the dean, was there, and the student Until the end of his life, for 35 years, O.V. Repriov's life was connected with Kharkiv, where for almost 30 years (1895-1925) he headed the Department of General Pathology (since 1922 - Pathological Physiology) of the Medical Faculty of the University (since 1921 - Kharkiv Medical Institute), at the same time he taught a course in general pathology at the Women's Medical Institute, the Veterinary Institute and the Kryvopuskov's Dental School, and in the last years of his life (1925-1930) he headed the research department of experimental pathology at the Main Directorate of Scientific, Artistic and Museum Institutions of Ukraine, the biological department of the Ukrainian Radiological Institute and the pathology department of the Ukrainian Institute of Scientific and Practical Veterinary Medicine. s gave the lecturer a round of applause for his lecture full of scientific interest."
The prosperity of the Kharkiv department is associated with the name of O. Repriov. Much attention was paid to its material and technical equipment. Teaching became mainly experimental. Its volume increased significantly, especially in the pathology of the endocrine system. It was enriched by lecture demonstrations of animal experiments, chemical experiments, macro- and micropreparations, devices, instruments, tables, projections on the screen, etc. Practical classes were significantly improved. O. V. Repriov transferred to the Kharkiv department the scientific direction of the Pashutin school - starvation and metabolic pathology. His studies of metabolism in fever, tumors, pregnancy, the state of the woman's body in the postnatal period and during lactation, and especially extensive fundamental research on the physiology and pathology of endocrine glands became very popular. The department performed metabolic studies in the pathology of the thyroid, parathyroid, pancreas, pituitary, adrenal glands, and gonads. The final monograph of O. Repriov "Internal secretion" (Leningrad, 1925) largely determined the development of national endocrinology. The scientist is rightfully considered the founder of domestic endocrinology.
O.V. Repriov is the author of brilliant textbooks: "Textbook of General Pathology" (1897), "Fundamentals of General Pathology" (2nd ed. "Textbook of General Pathology"), 1898, "Fundamentals of General and Experimental Pathology" (1908) with a volume of 1250 pages, "Manual of General Pathology" (1911). The review of the highly authoritative commission consisting of I.P. Pavlov, P.P. Kravkov, P.M. Albitsky and others on "Fundamentals of General and Experimental Pathology" reads: "The work under consideration is the result of many years of labor of a true scientist, in which great erudition was happily combined with a strong analytical and generalizing mind. This work belongs to those of which the national literature can be justly proud and, of course, deserves the prize. The value of this work can be expressed in the increase in the number of scientifically educated and scientifically thinking doctors, as well as in the benefits to patients that come from an increase in the number of thoughtful and scientifically educated doctors." Repriov was characterized as a brilliant teacher in an editorial in the Kharkiv Medical Journal dedicated to the 30th anniversary of his scientific and pedagogical activity (1914): "As a teacher and lecturer, O. V. is peculiar in many aspects... The main feature of his lectures is a deep, intimate penetration into the topic, into the "soul" of the subject of the lecture... The means to achieve this methodological goal is the technical side of teaching, and the actual completeness, and co-optation of other disciplines, and especially the ideological nature of O. V.'s lectures...
Not only thoughts and views that are more or less well established, but even currents of scientific thought that are barely emerging, unfold in O. V.'s lectures in their entirety, and the huge, often contradictory factual material, grouped around scientific ideas, is brought into a coherent, necessary abstract system and easily retained in memory Along with the completeness of the presentation, O. V.'s lectures reveal the intense work of his scientific thought... A student and thoughtful listener of O. V. not only acquires a lot of general pathological information, but is also introduced to the circle of the most important biological issues in general and, getting acquainted with the methods of strict scientific thinking, is imbued with the extremely complex issue of pathological biology - and acquires an impetus to work independently, to the best of his ability..."
In 1912, O.V. Repriov was awarded with the title of Honored Professor. Scientific works and textbooks of O.V. Repriov played a huge role in the development of experimental pathology and the separation of pathophysiology as an independent science.
O.V. Repriov is merited for founding the Department of Microbiology of Kharkiv Medical Institute (1922), the first head of which was his student D.P. Grinionov, later a famous microbiologist. O.V. Repriov was one of the initiators of the creation of the Research Institute of Endocrinology in Kharkiv (1919).
Repriov died suddenly on June 21, 1930, in his laboratory while analyzing another experiment with his students - an enviable death worthy of this outstanding scientist.
To this day, the Kharkiv Department is represented by the new generations of O.V. Repriov's school, who carefully preserve the traditions he laid down and the scientific direction developed by his student D.O. Alpern, such as the pathology of neuroendocrine regulation, neurohumoral mechanisms and pathochemistry of pathological processes.
Reference: А. В. Репрев – основатель харьковской научной школы патофизиологов, основоположник эндокринологии в России / Н. А. Клименко / Экспериментальная и клиническая медицина. – 2003. – № 2. – С. 7–9.
Translated into English by Yevheniia Hromko