As many of us know, Kharkiv has made an enormous contribution to the history and development of medicine.
These include both the great scientists who have become world-renowned for their discoveries and the work of medical institutions.
However, let’s be honest: the history of medicine in Kharkiv isn’t just about famous names and great achievements. It also has its dark chapters and stories that can only be described as tragicomic…
Just consider the massive scandal involving Fyodor Vasilyevich Pilger, a professor at the Imperial University.
In 1807, a certain landowner named Lesnitsky sought medical help from him. After diagnosing the patient with “stomach inflammation,” our physician eagerly set about treating him.
There was nothing he didn’t do to help his patient recover over the course of two days!
He performed three bloodlettings on the patient, applied 19 leeches, applied three Spanish fly plasters, and administered 32 grains of camphor, 26 grains of soporific opium, and 2 drachmas of Sidingamo opium drops. Naturally, this treatment drove the patient into a complete frenzy, so Pilger tied his hands and feet to the bed and covered his entire body with plasters. However, nothing helped.
When the inspector from the health board finally arrived at Lesnitsky’s estate, he diagnosed the landowner with ordinary vomiting caused by drunkenness and quickly got the patient back on his feet.
In September of that same year, 1881, doctors in Kharkiv managed to bring shame upon themselves in the magazines and newspapers of the then-Empire by becoming the subjects of an article titled “Appalling Inhumanity.”
Appalling inhumanity.
In Kharkiv, a woman who had already gone into labor was brought to the district maternity hospital in a “van’ko” (a horse-drawn carriage—author’s note). But the woman in labor was refused admission, as the maternity hospital does not accept patients during school vacation. The woman who had brought her was at a loss: the moment of delivery was imminent. The unfortunate woman was left right there on the street in front of the maternity hospital, and despite her tears and pleas, she was not even allowed into the hospital’s entrance hall—where she might have given birth—even temporarily. While negotiations were underway with the heartless guards stationed at the county maternity hospital, the woman in labor, in full view of a crowd of onlookers who had gathered to gawk, gave birth on the pavement of Staromoskovskaya Street, out in the open!
When they asked the same people who lived in the house for the scissors they needed, they were heartless enough to refuse even that. A simple woman from among the onlookers stepped forward and took the poor, suffering mother and her child into her own apartment.
These are the kinds of incidents that took place in our beloved city—a city so remarkable that the living embodiment of humanism, Dr. Vladislav Frankovsky, could coexist quite peacefully alongside appalling inhumanity…
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