Pyotr Alexandrovich HERZEN - the founder of oncology in the USSR, Honored Scientist of the RSFSR
(to the 150th of birthday)
Authors: Andreev Alexander Alekseevich , Ostroushko Anton Petrovich 
Published: November 2021

Pyotr Alexandrovich was born in 1871 in Florence in the family of Professor A. A. Herzen of the University of Lausanne. In 1896, he studied at the medical faculty of the University of Lausanne and began working at the Caesar Roux Clinic. In 1997, Pyotr Alexandrovich received a Doctor of Medicine degree and, fulfilling his grandfather's will, left for Russia. In 1898, P. A. Herzen received a Russian diploma of a doctor with honors. Then Pyotr Alexandrovich worked as an external doctor until 1900, and then until 1920, with breaks for service in the army as a military surgeon he was a resident of the surgical department of the Old Catherine Hospital in Moscow. During the Russian-Japanese War, Pyotr Alexandrovich was a surgeon on the Manchurian front, a surgeon in the active army during the First World War, and a consultant at the 151st military hospital during the Civil War. In 1909, he defended his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Medicine in Russia. In 1917, he became the head of the Department of Operative Surgery, in 1921-General Surgery of the 1st Moscow State University. The clinical base of the department was the Institute for the Treatment of Tumors (now the P. A. Herzen Moscow Research Oncological Institute), the director of which was P. A. Herzen from 1922 to 1934. In 1926, he was first elected chairman of the Surgical Society of Moscow, and in 1929 the XXI Congress of Russian Surgeons. In 1934, Pyotr Alexandrovich became the head of the Department of Hospital Surgery of the 1st Moscow Medical Institute and in the same year he was awarded the honorary title of Honored Scientist of the RSFSR, and in 1939 he was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He created the world's first pre-thoracic artificial esophagus (1907), was the first in the USSR to perform thoracoscopy for chronic pleural empyema (1925), suturing of a heart wound (1904), liver resection, developed a number of original operations: intra-abdominal fixation of the rectum when it falls out; application of cholecystoenteroanastomosis (1901), cholecystectomy, trans-vesical prostatectomy (1906); omentorenopexy of the lower pole of the kidney (1913); operations for anterior cerebral, inguinal and femoral hernias; developed the principles of surgical treatment of traumatic aneurysms. He also made a significant contribution to solving the problems of vascular surgery, oncology, urology, cardiac surgery, etc. He published 84 scientific papers, including 5 monographs. P. A. Herzen created the largest school of Soviet surgeons, oncologists. He was an honorary member of the French Academy of Surgery, the International Society of Surgeons, chairman of the surgical societies of the RSFSR and the USSR (1926-1928; 1935-1936), the XXI and XXIV All-Union Congresses of Surgeons (1929, 1938). P. A. Herzen was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, medals, including "For the Defense of Moscow". P. A. Herzen died in January 1947 and was buried in Moscow. The Moscow Research Oncological Institute, the periodical " Oncology. The journal named after P. A. Herzen". A memorial plaque in his honor is installed in the First Moscow State Medical University named after I. M. Sechenov. His name is given to surgical operations used for anterior craniocerebral and femoral hernias, hydronephrosis, cryptorchidism, the creation of an artificial esophagus from the small intestine, esophagoejunostomy after removal of the stomach, and others.