Friends!

Friends! On this day in 1952, Mykola Strazhesko died. He was a prominent Ukrainian physician, founder of a therapeutic school and domestic cardiology in general.

Mykola Strazhesko was born on December 30, 1876 in Odessa. His father was a lawyer, his mother was of the kind of Hetman Sagaidachny. Mykola Strazhesko was a reasonable child, he received primary education at the Rishelieu Gymnasium in Odessa. After graduation, the young man entered the medical faculty of the Kiev University. In 1899 Strazhesko graduated, received a diploma with honors and was enrolled in the Department of Pathology, which was led by Vasily Obraztsov. He immediately grasped the talent of this hard-working and capable boy and tried to help him to reach heights in every possible way. So Obraztsov made efforts to help Mykola ,to learn more, this time from the best doctors in France and Germany.

According to the fabulous coincidence, Mykola Strazhesko's marriage was also connected with Obraztsov. Once Strazhesko saved a girl- managed to extract her literally from under the hoof of the horse police. On this they said goodbye. Subsequently, the tutor of Strazhesko invited the young man for dinner. During a the dinner, he recognized the same girl whom he saved. This was Natalia, the daughter of Obraztsov. Then Nicholas realized that this was a fate. The couple married when Strazhesko was 25 years old.

Mykola Strazhesko continued to improve his knowledge. This time he was sent to St. Petersburg. For two years he had worked in the laboratory of the famous professor Ivan Pavlov. After practice, Pavlov suggested Strazhesko to write a dissertation on the physiology of the intestine. Mykola made a complex study related to enzymatic activity in the intestine, and on October 30, 1904, he received the title of Doctor of Medicine.

After that, Strazhesko returned to Kyiv. He was 28 years old and began to work at the Department of Faculty Therapy at the University of Kyiv. Subsequently, he already taught a course from the clinic of cardiovascular diseases. At the same time, Strazhesko continued to work as an assistant to Obraztsov. There is a legend that Professor Preobrazhensky and his assistant Dr. Bormental in "Dog's Heart" by Bulgakov was "written off" Obraztsov and his assistant Strazhesko. After all, in 1909, when these two scientists presented their work on heart disease, Mikhail Bulgakov entered the medical faculty of the University of Kyiv.

From 1910, Strazhesko headed various departments first at the Kiev Women's Medical Institute, later in the Alexander City Hospital. But times were difficult - so the family of a talented doctor was forced to move to Odessa for some time.

In 1922, Strazhesko returned to Kyiv. He collaborated with academician Alexander Bohomolets. The clinical department at the Institute of Experimental Biology and Pathology, which was headed by Strazhesko at the initiative of the Bohomolets, subsequently broke into the Kiev Research Institute of Clinical Medicine, whose director was Mykola Strazhesko.

Already at the age of 40, Mykola Strazhesko was one of the highest paid doctors. The patients remembered the professor in a vest ,who put his ear to the patient, listening them without tools. About the unique diagnostician went legends. The Kievans said that already the old Strazhesko was kneeling in front of the patient to listen to him. His patients became famous people: People's Artist Maria Zankovetska, actor Nikolai Sadovsky, architect Vladislav Gorodetsky., Writer Mikhail Kotsyubinsky.

In the 1930s, Strazhesko made a lot of effort to reduce cardiovascular disease and mortality. But he could not help his daughter Irina - he did not recognize tuberculosis in the girl's illness. She died at age 20.

During the Holodomor, Strazhesko was the first in the medical press to raise hunger issues - he wrote that people had edema on their throats. At first glance, it was a purely scientific text. However, the conclusion was that the patients recovered with the restoration of normal nutrition. Mykola Strazhesko was one of the few well-known doctors who directly said about the problem of illness and death from hunger.

In 1941, the physician, along with the entire Institute,was evacuated to Ufa. In Kiev, he was able to return only in 1944. But life prepared for Strazhesko a new blow. I have already told you about the "case of doctors", which was fabricated against prominent doctors at the top of the USSR. One of the doctors who came under it was the favorite student of Strazhesko Volodymyr Vasilenko. So, when known doctors were forced to sign a prosecutor, Strazhesko refused. For this he was punished - by complete and total ignoring. The institute did not receive enough funding, but most of them were forgotten.

Mykola Strazhesko could not suffer such a blow. He died on June 27, 1952, for acute myocardial infarction. The well-known Ukrainian humorist Ostap Vyshnya wrote this: "Strazhesko died -he was the beauty of medicine. The person who decorated Kiev with his face. How much nobleness, how much reason! How much heart was in this man?.