Aleksandr Iosifovich Pisnyachevsky (1863–1938) was a psychiatrist who headed the psychiatric care system of Nizhny Novgorod Governorate from 1905 to 1930, and one of the founders of the Lobachevsky University (now the Privolzhsky Research Medical University), and founder of the Department of Psychiatry and Neuropathology. He worked in Nizhny Novgorod psychiatry for 26 years — 13 years before and 13 years after the 1917 revolution.[1]
Early years and education
He was born on 30 August 1863 in Kamianets-Podilskyi, Podolia Governorate. In 1887 he graduated from Moscow University, after which he did an internship in Germany under the well-known psychiatrist Julius Ludwig August Koch.[1][3] In 1887–1890 he worked as a zemstvo doctor in the village of Gnezdovo, Smolensk Governorate, then as a resident physician at the Smolensk psychiatric hospital. He later headed the Poltava colony for the mentally ill and served as assistant director of the Kostiuzheny psychiatric hospital of the Bessarabian provincial zemstvo.[1] At every institution he set up laboratories for studying the anatomy of the nervous system, regularly visited domestic and foreign scientific centers, and took part in congresses and conferences.
Work in Nizhny Novgorod Governorate
At the end of 1904 the well-known psychiatrist Kashchenko, who had headed the provincial psychiatric service for many years, moved to Moscow. On his personal recommendation, the Nizhny Novgorod provincial zemstvo invited Pisnyachevsky to head the governorate's psychiatric institutions.[1][3] Aleksandr Iosifovich continued construction of the Lyakhovo, and upon its completion became its director. Fluent in foreign languages, he visited psychiatric clinics in Germany, Austria, Italy and Switzerland and drew on their experience: on his return he introduced changes to the plans of the institution then under construction, concerning the ventilation system and the layout of baths and plumbing.[1]
By 1910 he had managed to create a unified administration for the city hospital, with 100 beds, the Lyakhovo hospital-colony, with almost 400 beds, and a family foster-care system in Balakhna Uyezd), with 600 places and a receiving ward.[3] Like Kashchenko, Pisnyachevsky consistently opposed any measures of physical restraint of patients. At Lyakhovo, patients were engaged in occupational therapy, lectures and showings of "magic lantern pictures" (as cinema was then called) were arranged for them, and a library and a church were in operation.[3]
Academic work
Pisnyachevsky became one of the founders of the Faculty of Medicine of Nizhny Novgorod State University (founded in 1916) and the founder of its Department of Psychiatry and Neuropathology.[1][2] His scholarly and organizational contributions to Nizhny Novgorod psychiatry span both the pre-revolutionary and Soviet periods: he led the provincial service until 1930.
Legacy
In 2013, staff of the Clinical Psychiatric Hospital No. 1 of Nizhny Novgorod began restoring the institution's museum complex; as part of this work, publication of materials on the hospital's history was resumed, including on Pisnyachevsky's work.[1] For the 100th anniversary of Lobachevsky University, his name was specially noted as one of the founders of university medicine in Nizhny Novgorod.
Sources
- museum.unn.ru — A.I. Pisnyachevsky: a life and career — Lobachevsky University Museum (archive)
- pimunn.ru — Nervous diseases (archive)
- nn.aif.ru — Don't disturb the "living" corpse. How the mentally ill were treated in tsarist Russia — AiF Nizhny Novgorod