“Kazan Medical Journal” — the successor of the “Diaries of the Physicians’ Society” at the Imperial Kazan University

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The Kazan Medical Journal was considered founded in 1901, which became a significant event for the medical community of Kazan, Kazan province, and the Russian Federation. This is supported by several special publications directly devoted to the history of the Kazan Medical Journal [1–4] and the continuous numbering of journal volumes. The first issue of the Kazan Medical Journal was included in volume I, which was published by the Printing House of the Imperial Kazan University in January–February 1901.

The history of the journal has been discrete because of fundamental social and political upheavals in Russia during the revolution, war, and post-war years. Thus, scholars substantiated the “age” of the Kazan Medical Journal differently in their arguments.

Attempts were made to revise the history of the Kazan Medical Journal as an independent publication. For example, the anniversary article by Prof. E.M. Lepsky, published in 1940, proposed to subtract 5 years from the journal’s history because of its suspension for a similar period in 1916–1920 due to insurmountable reasons.

The restoration of the journal’s activity, which the author calls “revival,” occurred after the October Revolution when the Kazan Medical Journal abandoned its former “academic” (in a negative sense) and “archival” characteristics <...>, began to react to the major events in the country <...>, and covered all areas of scientific medicine in the practice of public health [1]. These lines reveal the influence of political discourse in the public consciousness of Soviet society at that time. This contributes to the importance of contrasting the periods of pre-revolutionary and Soviet history in the activities of the Kazan Medical Journal, an important publication.

In later anniversary articles [2, 3], the second period of suspension (1941–1957) of the Kazan Medical Journal was considered a coercive measure of an emergency nature, which did not affect the calculation of the journal’s “age.” The resumption of its activities gained universal importance: the medical community repeatedly raised the issue of fund allocation to the Ministry of Health of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which upon the petition of the Tatar Oblast Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) obtained a positive decision from the Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU for the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

Therefore, the appropriate solution was to count the history of the journal’s activity in its entirety starting from its foundation. According to the authors, temporary financial and political difficulties, which led to short periods of suspension of regular publication, are not a reason to recalculate the journal’s “age” to a lesser degree because neither the topics of the published articles nor the general direction of the journal’s scientific activity has changed.

Moreover, the historical research conducted by the authors revealed the reasons for the upward revision of the journal’s “age.” Although the official numbering of the serial volumes of the Kazan Medical Journal begins with 1, published in 1901, an organic continuity exists between the Kazan Medical Journal and the Diaries of the Physicians’ Society. Some publications of reference and encyclopedic characters [5] have already mentioned the existence of the continuity between the Kazan Medical Journal and the Diaries of the Physicians’ Society. However, these publications do not substantiate this relationship.

In the office of the Fund 92 “Kazan Educational District,” deposited in the State Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan, unique historical documents have been preserved, which supported the structural continuity of the scientific periodicals published by the Kazan Society of Physicians at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries.

Inventory No. 2 of Fund No. 92 “Kazan Educational District” contains File No. 656, which encompasses correspondence between the trustee of the Kazan Educational District and the management of the Imperial Kazan University and a separate censor of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. On November 16, 1900, the Trustee of the Kazan Educational District Mikhail Martynovich Alekseenko received a petition from the Rector of the Imperial Kazan University Dmitry Ivanovich Dubyago. It was made under the outgoing serial number 2749 of the rector’s documentary correspondence and was entitled, “On the permission to the Society of Physicians to publish instead of the Diary a monthly publication called Kazan Medical Journal” [6].

This petition reported the unanimous decision and the subsequent petition of the Society of Physicians of the Imperial Kazan University, adopted at the meeting of October 20, 1900, to print another monthly publication instead of the society’s diaries. The general possibility of submitting such a petition was established in paragraphs 21, 22, and 25 of the Statute of the Society of Physicians, approved on March 12, 1877, by the Minister of Public Education D.A. Tolstoy [7]. Paragraph 22 of the statute spoke about the possibility of the society to “print, at its own discretion, the works of its members and other works corresponding to its tasks.”

At the meeting, which was historic for the future Kazan Medical Journal, in addition to the society’s Chairman Prof. L.O. Darkshevich, Secretary V.V. Vladimirov, and Honorary Member Prof. N.M. Lyubimov, the society had 29 full-fledged members, including Professors N.A. Gerken, E.I. Golishevsky, P.P. Zabolotnov, M.V. Kazansky, A.N. Kazem-Bek, G.A. Klyachkin, V.P. Nebolyubov, V.P. Pervushin, A.V. Favorsky, and A.A. Khitrovo, and 150 external members [8].

The irregularity of the publications was the main reason for replacing the Diaries of the Physicians’ Society, which had been published since 1872, with a new edition, because it “appeared in editions at indefinite intervals.” The meeting of the members proposed publishing the new edition monthly, allocating at least three printed pages per month for the placement of articles [6]. The issues of the journal in summer months (May–August) were published in pairs, with the May and June issues and the July and August issues published together. Thus, the successor journal published 10 issues annually [8].

The question of the retail sale of the journal was also solved. The price of a single issue was 75 kopecks, and the subscription price for readers who were not members of the society was 5 rubles annually [6].

In the Minutes of the Meeting of the Society of Physicians, the members voted on the choice of the name of the journal, and the majority selected “Kazan Medical Journal.” However, at the proposal of Dr. M.V. Kazansky, it was retained as the “Diary of the Society” as a supplement to the Kazan Medical Journal, henceforth representing the publication of the Minutes of the Meetings of the Society of Physicians at Kazan University [8].

The following article types were included in the issues of the Kazan Medical Journal:

1. Original articles
2. Abstracts of recent literature
3. Annual reviews of literature by specialty
4. Reports of the meetings of learned societies, congresses, and doctoral disputations
5. Reports of hospital institutions
6. Correspondence
7. Reviews
8. Bibliography
9. Letters to the Editor
10. Obituaries
11. Chronicles and minor news
12. From the Editor
13. Announcements

On November 24, 1900, the draft was sent by the Trustee of the Kazan Educational District M.M. Alekseenko in a confidential letter to the Kazan Separate Censor of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Adolf Mikhailovich Osipov. In a reply letter on November 28, 1900, Censor A.M. Osipov approved this program:

“Having reviewed the program of the proposed Kazan Medical Journal, I found it very similar to the program of the hitherto published Diary of the Physicians’ Society, with the exception of the added sections of Correspondence and Letters to the Editor. In my opinion, the content of these sections, according to the purpose of the journal, should be limited to reports on hygienic, sanitary and generally medical conditions, without discussing socio-economic issues, such as small landed peasants, workers’ wages, the length of the working day, the burdensomeness of taxes and duties, producing malnutrition, corporal punishment, etc. Since the journal will be published without prior general censorship, the chairman of the Society of Physicians may not be aware of the Ministry of Internal Affairs censorship orders to prevent the publication of articles with biased coverage of the facts of the economic life of the population, and as a result, the above-mentioned sections of the journal may publish reports that are not desirable from the censorship point of view.

In general, I think that the journal, published in a wider program and with a correct publication, can bring revitalization to the development of medical issues, serve for a more correct setting of medical affairs in the local area and provide an opportunity to print the best works of students and young doctors, which at present often do not find a place in the Diary due to the limited printed pages of this organ” [6].

Thus, a separate letter of the censor of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is a confirmation of the continuity between the previously published diaries and the newly organized Kazan Medical Journal. Its structure included both the existing types of publication materials and the newly introduced categories of articles, which were classified in strict accordance with the scientific program of the journal.

However, discrepancies and some inaccuracies were noted when counting the history of the publication of materials of the Kazan Society of Physicians, originally called the Society of Physicians of Kazan (since 1868). Then, the name was changed to the Society of Physicians at Kazan University (since 1877), published in 1860–1870s as Diaries and Protocols of the Society of Physicians [5, 9, 10].

Thus, in the Kazan Scientific Press, reference edition of 2013 [5], 1872 was indicated as the year in which the medical journal of the Society of Physicians of Kazan began its publication; in this edition, it was inaccurately titled as the Diary of the Kazan Society of Physicians at Kazan University. The authors mean two successive issues of the society, initially called Diaries of the Physicians’ Society of Kazan, and later changed to Diaries of the Physicians’ Society at Kazan University.

Another edition of the Tatar Encyclopedia of 2002 [9] mentioned 1871 as the year in which the Proceedings of the Society of Physicians, also designated as the Society of Physicians at the Imperial Kazan University, began its periodic publication. Moreover, it mentioned 1870 as the year in which the Minutes of the Meeting of the Society of Physicians, again designated as the Society of Physicians at the Imperial Kazan University, was first published.

The periodic publication of materials on the activities of the Society of Physicians of Kazan began in 1872 when the Diaries of the Physicians’ Society of Kazan were first published. On October 8, 1895, at the annual meeting of the Society of Physicians at the Imperial Kazan University, Professor Mikhail Yakovlevich Kapustin, who was the chairman of the Society of Physicians at that time, presented a report titled, “A brief review of 25 years of activity of the Society of Physicians at the Imperial Kazan University” [10]. Although the society was founded in 1868, 1895 was its 25th founding anniversary, because its functioning was interrupted by a 2-year period in 1875–1876, which was then “subtracted” from its total “age.” This report emphasized the special role of Professor Nikolai Andreyevich Vinogradov as the ideological inspirer in the establishment of the future scientific meeting of Kazan physicians and indicated two dates as the first dates of the society’s meetings.

The first date before the official organization of the society was February 3, 1868. At that time, all society members were offered the presidency and appointed one by one alphabetically. Thus, the first chairman of that meeting was private doctor Emelyan Valentievich Adamyuk. One of the messages of the first pre-official meeting of the Society of Physicians was a remark from Prof. Arkady Ivanovich Yakobiy about the place of the society’s printed organ regarding its activity. He said, “Experience shows that any society can become either a collection of random statements of members, their comrades, or a collective whole-working entity. In the first case, meetings will produce random material that has a definite purpose only in the face of its individual applicants; in the second case, the purpose that the society will try to achieve through the work of its members must be found and clarified” [10].

A month later, in March 1868 (Prof. M.Y. Kapustin regretted that the exact date was lost), the first official meeting of the Society of Physicians of Kazan was held. Professor Nikolai Andreyevich Vinogradov was elected (not alphabetically but by majority vote) as the chairman of the society, and Rudolf Fedorovich Nicolai, a resident of the Faculty Therapeutic Clinic, was elected as the secretary. In addition, 32 other people were members of the society, of which one-third were doctors of medicine and professors of the departments of the Medical Faculty of Kazan University. They included State Councilor and Distinguished Ordinary Professor of Anatomy Yevgeny Filippovich Aristov, Dean of the Medical Faculty Alexander Illarionovich Kozlov, Professor Nikolai Andreyevich Vinogradov of the Therapeutic Clinic elected as a chairman, Professor of Physiological Chemistry Alexander Yakovlevich Danilevsky, Professor of Physiology Nikolai Osipovich Kovalevsky, Extraordinary Professor of Private Pathology and Therapy Petr Ivanovich Levitsky, Extraordinary Professor of Surgery Mikhail Vasilyevich Nikolsky, Extraordinary Professor of Pathological Anatomy Alexander Vasilyevich Petrov, Professor Lev Fomich Sutkovsky of the Faculty Surgical Clinic, Professor Alexander Frese, Director of the Kazan District Insane Asylum, and Professor of Hygiene Arkady Ivanovich Yakobiy.

The second third of the society consisted of other members of the departments of the Medical Faculty of the Imperial Kazan University. There were four doctors of medicine, namely, Privat-Docent of Ophthalmology Emelyan Valentievich Adamyuk, Associate Professor of Zoochemistry Arseny Yakovlevich Scherbakov, Privat-Docent Konstantin Zakharovich Kuchin, Prosector of Physiological Anatomy Mikhail Vasilyevich Kulaevsky, and Assistant Prosector of Pathological Anatomy Nikolai Fyodorovich Shneider and six residents of the clinics, namely, Nikolai Ivanovich Bogolyubov and Nikolai Fyodorovich Vysotsky (Surgical Faculty Clinic), Vladimir Pavlovich Ivanov, Vladislav Vikentievich Miodushevsky (Therapeutic Hospital Clinic), Stepan Semyonovich Muratovsky (Surgical Hospital Clinic), and Alexander Leopoldovich Zhebrovsky (Obstetrics Faculty Clinic).

The final third of the Society of Physicians of Kazan included three doctors of medicine who were not affiliated with the Kazan Imperial University: Senior Physician of the Kazan Military Hospital Alexei Ivanovich Belyaev, Military Physician Gavriil Petrovich Sushchinsky, and Kazan Provincial Medical Inspector Mikhail Fomich Krivoshapkin. It also included a Kazan city doctor (Vladimir Ivanovich Kolontayev), a doctor of the Alexandrov Hospital for Laborers (Matvey Frolovich Boldyrev), a resident of the Kazan District House of the Insane (Vladimir Vasilyevich Sokolov), a physician at the Kazan Zemstvo House of the Insane (Xanfiy Vasilyevich Sokolov), free practicing physicians (Vladimir Dmitrievich Vladimirov, Nikolai Petrovich Sokolovsky, Alexander Kazimirovich Hrshchonovich [position not specified], and Odintsov (name, patronymic, and position not specified) [10].

During the first year, the Society of Physicians held seven meetings at which 14 members made 24 presentations. In 1869, only three meetings were held, and nine reports were heard. During this initial period, neither minutes of the meetings nor special diaries of the society were kept. R.F. Nikolai, the secretary of the society, recorded data only as short statistical reports for the year of work. According to M.Y. Kapustin, this was due to the lack of “great vitality” in the activity of the society at that time and the lack of “contingent of scientific forces for living scientific activity.” Moreover, the direction of the society’s activity was formed in accordance with the medical and social realities of post-reform Russia in the 1860s and early 1870s.

The initial direction of the society’s publication activity was based on the fields of practical medicine, public hygiene, public health, and the formation and spread of endemic diseases.

The intensification of the work and the rapid quantitative growth of the members of the society, which was 142 in October 1870, led to an increase in the publication activities of the members of the society. In connection with the decision to collect statistical data on the prevalence and types of diseases in medical institutions and private practitioners, doctors filled out special forms according to the established form.

In 1872, at the suggestion of Prof. N.I. Studensky, a set of incoming data was printed with a periodicity of 2 weeks; accordingly, a special publication platform, separate from the Proceedings and Minutes of the Society of Physicians, called Diaries of the Physicians’ Society, was provided. Initially, the diaries were intended to be a kind of supplement to the then regularly published Minutes of the Society of Physicians; however, gradually, the diaries began to publish reports and information on the society’s meetings and discussions on several issues, data on clinical operations, and results of forensic as well as pathological autopsies.

Professor Nikolai Ivanovich Studensky was the first supervisor, editor, and main worker, who distributed the collected data by disease types, which were subdivided by sex, age, occupation, and place of residence. In the first 6 months of the diaries, data on 10,000 cases of diseases were reflected, which included data on the intermittent fever in 1867–1871 and the cholera epidemic of 1872 in Kazan [10].

Thus, the history of the Diaries of the Physicians’ Society began with medical statistics. Gradually, figures in zemstvo medicine of the entire Volga-Kama region, for example, I.I. Molleson, E.A. Osipov, P.A. Peskov [11], and others, participated in the work. Professors and doctors of medicine, who were the first historical members of the society, published their special reports and communications, and many became a kind of program articles, which determined the direction of scientific thinking of the Society of Physicians for the subsequent decades.

After the resumption of the society’s activities in 1875–1876, the authors of the publications in the Diary of the Physicians’ Society gradually broadened the participants of the published materials. In addition to the traditional research in medical topographical descriptions, medical geography, medical statistics, sanitary organization, and the study and treatment of epidemic diseases, the members of the society published speeches and reports of various commissions and meetings, program documents, and results of clinical and theoretical research in certain fields. These included work in anatomy and histology with embryology, physiology and physiological chemistry, pharmacology and toxicology, general pathology with pathological anatomy, private pathology and therapy, neuropathology and psychiatry, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, dermatology and syphilis, ophthalmology, otology, forensic medicine, hygiene with medical police, and epizootology.

The activities of the editorial board of both the diaries and the Kazan Medical Journal of the pre-revolutionary years are not available in existing documents. Probably, the practice of creating a special editorial board to process incoming materials for their subsequent publication, which were published after a collective discussion at the meetings of the Society of Physicians, did not yet exist in those years.

Thus, the entire meeting of the society included the functions of a collective editorial board that discussed all submitted papers and evaluated their significance for medical science and practice, which ultimately implied the possibility of their publication. However, the continuity between the diaries and the Kazan Medical Journal was also confirmed by both editorial boards (i.e., meetings of the members of the society that discussed the studies submitted for publication) being identical in terms of personal composition during the last period of publication of the diaries [8] and the first period of the publication of the Kazan Medical Journal [12]. The title page of the Kazan Medical Journal indicates that the materials received were published under the editorship of one of the members of the society, who at that time was the chairman of the Society and, in all likelihood, made the final decision on the publication of the submitted materials.

Having returned in late 1900 to its original status as a supplement to the main publication of the Kazan medical community, which was the Kazan Medical Journal, the Diaries of the Physicians’ Society represented the preceding period of the establishment of the main publication of the medical community of Kazan University and the city of Kazan. Diaries on the whole scientific and medical topics and the community of specialists who worked tirelessly for the benefit of medical science and practice [13] can be called the historical first stage in the activity of the Kazan Medical Journal; for this reason, it can count its history from 1872.

 

Author contributions. R.G.I. collected and analyzed the results. A.Y.I. and A.U.Z. conducted the study. A.S.S. supervised the work.
Funding. The study did not receive financial support.
Conflict of interest. The authors declare the absence of any conflict of interest on the submitted article.

About the authors

Alexey S. Sozinov

Kazan State Medical University

Email: rector@kazangmu.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0686-251X

M.D., D. Sci. (Med.), Prof., Rector

Russian Federation, Kazan, Russia

Ayrat U. Ziganshin

Kazan State Medical University

Email: auziganshin@gmail.com
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-9087-7927

M.D., D. Sci. (Med.), Prof., Head of Depart., Depart. of Pharmacology

Russian Federation, Kazan, Russia

Anton Yu. Ivanov

Kazan State Medical University

Email: Antonivanof@yandex.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-7039-9326

Cand. Sci. (History), Assoc. Prof., Depart. of Biomedical Ethics, Medical Law and History of Medicine

Russian Federation, Kazan, Russia

Regina G. Ivanova

Kazan State Medical University

Author for correspondence.
Email: MuseumKGMU@yandex.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-5026-2709

Cand. Sci. (History), Head, Museum of History

Russian Federation, Kazan, Russia

References

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