The role of Kharkov orthopedic school in life and activity of professor Ilya Leont’evich Zaichenko (07.03.1896–06.15.1964)

Abstract

The article reveals interesting details of the development of the system of health care and the development of the national orthopedics and traumatology in the period between the two world wars and the first post-war decades, and the importance of the developments of the Kharkov scientific school under the leadership of Professor Sitenko Mikhail Ivanovich. Under the influence of the Kharkov period, orthopedics became a vo­cation for Zaichenko Ilya Leontyevich, who, under the mot­to of the teacher (Sitenko M. I.), «to treat with his head, and not with his hands», remained loyal to the profession in the most difficult circumstances. A clear illustration of this was the medi­cal and underground activities of I. L. Zaichenko during the Second world war. In the postwar years, Professor Zaichen­ko I. L. trained 4 candidates and 1 doctor of medical sciences. Over the years of his scientific activity, he conducted more than 3 000 experiments, and in connection with this, he always re­called one of his teacher-teachers o Professor Yelenevsky K. F. It is worth noting the experiment of 1936 with the use of cold-preserved bone (Dr. Inklan applied a cold-frozen bone graft on a man in Cuba in 1942). Zaichenko I. L., MD, made three scientific discoveries: 1) created a scheme of regenerative pro­cess of bone tissue, consisting of six stages, which was formally adopted in the former USSR, which is reflected in the 14th volume of the Great Medical Encyclopaedia; 2) described in 1939 the process of resorption of the bone homotransplant by leu­cocytes «according to the type of ice melting» (now such cells are called immune competent, and clone them to create specific antisera that depress the host’s immune aggression against the graft); 3) manufactured an immunopreparation from rab­bit tissues treated before the preparation of oligopeptides. The achievements of Professor Zaichenko I. L. are still relevant today — his scientific works are cited, and the institutions and departments created by him continue to operate.