Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Bogomolets—a Ukrainian Soviet pathophysiologist and the founder of the Ukrainian school of pathological physiology, endocrinology, and gerontology.
Place of Birth, Education
He was born on May 24, 1881, in Kyiv, at the Lukyanivska Prison. At that time, his mother, Sofia Bogomolets, and his father, Oleksandr Mykhailovych, were being held there.
From 1900 to 1901, he attended the 1st Kyiv Gymnasium, from which he graduated with a gold medal, after which he enrolled in the law school at St. Vladimir’s University. He later transferred to the medical school and then decided to continue his studies in Odesa at Novorossiysk University.
While a sophomore in 1902, he published his first scientific paper, ” On the Structure and Microphysiology of Brunner’s Glands.”
In February 1906, he graduated from the university with honors and received his medical degree.
Career
In January 1907, Bogomolets was appointed as a supernumerary laboratory assistant in the Department of General Pathology at Novorossiysk University, and in 1910 he became a private lecturer.
Also in 1909, he defended his dissertation at the Imperial Military Medical Academy on the topic “On the Microscopic Structure and Physiological Significance of the Adrenal Glands in Healthy and Diseased Organisms.”
In January 1911, Bogomolets was sent abroad for a year to prepare for a professorship. While there, he worked at leading universities and clinics in France and Germany.
The “Saratov” Period
Upon his return that same year, he was appointed extraordinary professor in the Department of General Pathology and Bacteriology at the Faculty of Medicine of Saratov University. He held this position from 1911 to 1925. During this time, a research laboratory was established at the university and equipped with state-of-the-art equipment. The scientist brought some of the instruments from Paris and constructed the rest himself.
In his scientific work, Bogomolets focused on issues in immunology, the study of the mechanisms of cellular and humoral immunity, and anaphylaxis.
After the October Revolution, he became the chief epidemiologist of the Saratov Provincial Department of Public Health.
In 1921, Bogomolets wrote and published a textbook titled “A Short Course in Pathological Physiology” in Saratov.
In 1923, he established the first antimalarial laboratory in the USSR.
The “Moscow” Period
In March 1925, he moved to Moscow, where he took up a position as a professor in the Department of Pathological Physiology at the Faculty of Medicine of the Second Moscow State University.
During this period, he authored a number of scholarly works:
- “The Endocrinology Crisis” of 1927;
- “The Mystery of Death,” 1927;
- “An Introduction to the Theory of Constitutions and Diatheses,” in two editions from 1928;
- “On the Vegetative Metabolic Centers,” 1928;
- “Edema: An Essay on Pathogenesis,” 1928;
- “Arterial Hypertension: An Essay on Pathogenesis,” 1929.
In particular, he published an updated and expanded third edition of the textbook *Pathological Physiology*.
From 1928 to 1931, he served as director of the Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion at the Academy of Sciences. Under his leadership, the institute successfully solved the problem of reliable blood preservation for the first time.
In 1930, he moved to Kyiv, where he later became president of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). In particular, he headed the Institute of Experimental Biology and Pathology and the Institute of Clinical Physiology of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR.
Life in Ukraine
While living in Ukraine, he focused on endocrinology, research into the autonomic nervous system, constitution and diathesis, oncology, and the physiology and pathology of connective tissue, among other topics.
Another important achievement by Bogomolets was the method he developed for treating connective tissue using antireticular cytotoxic serum, known as ACS or Bogomolets’ serum. In particular, he formulated the theory of colloidoclastic shock, which explained the mechanism of action of blood transfusion, and authored a theory on the interaction between tumors and the body, which revolutionized previous understandings of tumor growth mechanisms.
During the period of mass repression, at Bogomolets’ request and under his supervision, many prominent scientists were released from detention.
In 1932, he became a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and in 1939, a member of the Academy of Sciences of the Byelorussian SSR.
The World War II Era
At the start of World War II, the scientist was evacuated to Ufa along with the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. There, he organized a large-scale reorganization of Ukrainian scientific institutions to meet the needs of wartime.
In the years that followed, Bogomolets continued to work on issues of pathophysiology, focusing on matters of military medicine.
From 1942, he served as vice president of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He contributed to the establishment of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR and became a full member in 1944. That same year, he was also elected an honorary academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR.
In the spring of 1944, Bogomolets returned to Kyiv and led the effort to resume operations at the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR.
The Postwar Period
During the 1952 academic session, his teachings were deemed erroneous and inconsistent with the official line of Soviet physiology. His theory of connective tissue was declared pseudoscientific. After that, the institutes founded by Bogomolets were shut down, and his family began to be persecuted.
After the death of Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), these decisions were reviewed and deemed erroneous.
Death/Fatalities
Bohomolets passed away on July 19, 1946, from tuberculosis, which he had contracted in his youth.
Marital Status
In 1911, he married Olga Tykhotskaya. That same year, the couple had a son, Oleg.
