IN MEMORIAM OF RUSSIAN DOCTORS - ROMANOWSKY DMITRY LEONIDOVICH AND CHENZINSKY CHESLAV IVANOVICH - IT IS DEVOTED

Time will prolong time, and life will serve life.

/ Albert Camus /

SCIENTIFIC LIFE OF Ch. I. CHENZINSKY

     The following is a short curriculum vitae of Ch. I. Chenzinsky, based on data presented by the senior doctor of the District Hospital of Odessa M. S. Belenkiy, which he outlined in his letter of 7/V – 1927. Cheslav Ivanovich Chenzinsky was born in Warsaw on the 6th of March in 1851. So now he would be 76 years old.

     This is the age which many anatomic pathologists in our country oftentimes live to, for example, I. M. Rakhmaninov, V. D. Shervinsky, I. F. Klein in Moscow, not to mention Germany where F. Marchand (Leipzig) and P. Baumgarten (Dresden), reached the age of 80 are still in good health, and where recently С. Еberth, who discovered a typhoid bacillus, died at the age of 92. As we know, R. Virсhоw closed his days in 1902 at the age of 83. Cheslav Ivanovich passed away in 1916 at the age of 65.

     In 1870, having received a school-leaving certificate in one of Warsaw secondary schools, he received a title of a doctor in 1876 at the Warsaw University, the medical faculty of which was at that time notable for its large scientific resources of the Polish origin. Among them we can mention a pathological anatomy professor Brodovsky who was a direct teacher of Ch. I. Chenzinsky.

     Apparently, a gifted student of R.Virchow Brodovsky inspired Ch. Ivanovich to pathological anatomy, which could not be cancelled by the entire subsequent service as a military doctor lasted for 15 years form 1877 to1892, and as a resident, first in the 83rd and form 1879 to 1892 in the Odessa Military Hospital.

     Fortunately for science and for Odessa, Ch. I. Chenzinsky got to the military service to Odessa at the time of the apogee of the prosector glory of P. V. Stroganov after the first anatomist G. M. Minh who moved to the Kiev University department in 1878. In 1884 Ch. I. Chenzinsky, a 33 year old "accepted" resident, became a private student of P. V. Stroganov. By that time Chenzinsky passed the examinations for doctoral degree in the Military Medical Academy in 1881–1882, when the pathological anatomy professor there was a student of M. M. Rudnev – N. P. Ivanovsky, and a prosector with him his other student – K. N. Vinogradov. The latter first became the first Tomsk professor, and then the assistant of N. P. Ivanovsky at the academic chair.

     Long collaboration with an outstanding and talented N. V. Stroganov for 13 years, from 1884 to 1897, favorably influenced the scientific development of Ch. I. Chenzinsky. On the 1st of February in 1887, remaining a military doctor, he took a part-time position of the prosector assistant in the Odessa Town Hospital and worked actually as an anatomist there, as at that time I. V. Stroganov was appointed to be the senior hospital doctor. Such situation remained till Ch. I. retired from the military service in 1892. After that he without finality devoted himself to the town prosectorium, but nominally worked as an anatomist assistant for 5 years till 1897, when N. V. Stroganov died. Ch. I. Hentsinsky officially took his position.

     In the Old Odessa Hospital Ch. I. Сhenzinsky developed a method for malarial plasmodium staining, received in the science world his name and served as a theme for his thesis for a doctor's degree. He defended his thesis in the Military Medical Academy in 1889, when "the malaria microorganism doctrine", used as a title of his thesis, was at the earliest stage of its development. This work written in the Odessa prosectorium not having its own medical faculty at that time made Ch. I. a qualified scientist. The science world turned his attention to him.

     Also he got influenced a prominent invertebrates expert constellation at the scientific and historical department of the Odessa University that included I. I. Mechnikov and L. O. Kovalevsky. In the period of his living in Odessa, coincided with the 80s of the XIX century, there was a revival of biological knowledge, which was true for the Odessa University as well. Its uprise was caused by a new university charter adopted in 1863. This made a favorable scientific air around the Odessa University, inhaled by doctors involved in scientific activities, who took the town hospital to a new high level from the perspective of the science and research.

     After all, it was that Old Town Hospital in which its first anatomist G. N. Minh, almost at the expense of his life, on the 25th of April in 1874 set up the first in the history of medicine experiment of inoculation of relapsing fever blood to himself. And he was treated by well-known O. O. Mochutkovsky who also wrote his name in the history of the medical science. The Old Odessa Hospital where many dominant scientists worked, like well-known later prof. N. V. Sklifasovsky and, was a source of scientific knowledge and research from which young inquisitive doctors, to the number of which Ch. I. Chenzinsky belonged to, quenched their thirst. But the hospital not only taught, developed, improved; it created scientific traditions and brought up doctors among whom many public figures got honorable popularity.

     Ch. I. Chenzinsky, as it was already mentioned, did not remained aloof this kind of activity. His long-term work among Odessa doctors nearby the university centre of knowledge reflected on his education and social nurture of Ch. I. Chenzinsky.

     One could ask, what school did Ch. I. Chenzinsky belong to? As we saw, he was not an assistant and did not undergo training at the academic department. But all the time he worked only in Odessa Town Hospital where he independently prepared a good thesis on a burning and vital; theme for 80s of the XIX century: malarial parasites in human blood. Thanks to his energy, initiative, tireless diligence and abilities he became a first class hospital anatomist, scientific friend and adviser of a hospital doctor. In hospital, he created the anatomists school which gave us the following specialists: a well-known scientist Balakhansky (Baku), a prosector and now a Baku professor M. S. Milmann, a Moscow prosector A. M. Sinev and others. In this respect, he can be linked to the Hamburg hospital anatomists Eug. Frankel (Eppendorf) and M. Simmonds (Städt. Krankenhaus). The first of them O. Lubarsch called in the obituary a talented self-educated person "Selfmademan", a nugget. Such was Ch. I. Chenzinsky, however with the following difference. After losing the Strassburg University,

a new Hamburg University was opened. At the sunset of his days, Eug. Frankel was first to be appointed to the chair of the pathological anatomy, which was a fair requital for his scientific studies and work as a self-educated academician. Like his Hamburg colleagues, Ch. I. Chenzinsky made a great preparatory work together with his predecessors G. N. Minh and N. V. Stroganov for the medical faculty founded in 1900. In 1902 the faculty awarded him an honorary title of the first privat-docent of pathological anatomy. In his turn, Ch. I. gave back as good as he got and passed his collection of anatomic preparations to the Medical Faculty. But this was not enough; the pathological institute of the District Hospital created by him, served later on as a perennial source of rare and scientifically interesting preparations. Even now it continues to widen the collections of a wonderful museum of pathological anatomy at the Odessa Medical Institute, created for the last 25 years thanks to the energy and efforts of prof. M. M. Tiesenhausen, mainly from the Odessa hospitals.

     So, we saw that form 1879 to 1916, i. e. for 37 years Ch. I. Chenzinsky worked in Odessa. At that he worked for 32 years at the Town Hospital as a common anatomist till the day of his death.

     He came to Odessa as a 28 year old military doctor, and died as a hoary 65 year old honored scientist and prominent public figure. All his scientific life passed in Odessa that became his second Motherland, in particular in the Old and New Town Hospitals which were the arena of his activity for over three generations. During this period, he dissected not less than 15–20 thousand bodies, 500 a year at the average. He had an enormous experience and earned the right to be recognized in Ukraine with his indefatigable work in the heavy atmosphere of the dissecting room. For his work he was awarded the title of the honored Ukrainian hospital anatomist. Ch. I. Chenzinsky was a person of everlasting devotion and fidelity to Odessa and ne