One of the highest forms of recognition of a person's merit is when his name becomes an element of folklore. But in the case of the doctor Petr Petrovich Kashchenko, everything is not so simple. His last name actually became synonymous with the word "psychiatric hospital". Although the doctor himself had little to do with tranquilizers and straitjackets. He was a very interesting person, a revolutionary in medicine and politics.
Biography
Pyotr Petrovich Kashchenko was born in the Kuban, in Yeysk, on 1858-28-12. His father, Pyotr Fedorovich, a hereditary Cossack, was the founder of the Kashchenko medical dynasty. He graduated from the Medical and Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg and became a military doctor. Mother, Alexandra Pavlovna Chernikova, was the daughter of a collegiate assessor.
The family brought up seven children. Peter was the first child, from childhood he became interested in medicine and decided to follow in his father's footsteps. Pyotr Fedorovich died when his eldest son was sixteen. However, he managed to instill in him a craving for medical practice and democratic views.
In the Kashchenko family, all children received a decent education. Peter's younger brotherVsevolod also became a doctor, defectologist. When her sons and daughters grew up, Alexandra Pavlovna went to a monastery and dedicated herself to God.
Study
In 1876, Petr Petrovich Kashchenko entered the Kyiv University of St. Vladimir at the Faculty of Medicine. There was not enough money for studies, but the mother was able to secure a special scholarship for her son. Kashchenko immediately stood out among other students with his brilliant knowledge. The professors noted this, and soon Peter was transferred to Moscow University.
At the university, Kashchenko not only studied, but also created a revolutionary circle in which he discussed the political reforms of Emperor Alexander II with other students. Soon the gendarmes began to watch him.
In 1881, Pyotr Petrovich Kashchenko was preparing to graduate from the university, but then the news came that the Narodnaya Volya had killed Alexander II. The students raised funds for a wreath for the emperor and wanted to choose the people who would take him to St. Petersburg. The excellent student Kashchenko publicly condemned such an initiative, and the talkative student was expelled from the university two months before defending his diploma. By that time, he was already married to a girl named Vera Aleksandrovna Gorenkina. Pyotr Petrovich and his wife were sent to Stavropol into exile. The only thing he was allowed to do there was to teach singing at the women's gymnasium.
Four years later, Kashchenko was able to complete his education at Kazan University, where unreliable students studied. At one time, Vladimir Lenin graduated from this university. In Kazan, Petr Petrovich became interested in psychiatry, studying under the guidance of Dr. Rogozin,director of the city mental hospital.
Reformer
At that time, Russian psychiatry was in the process of reform. If earlier the mentally ill were perceived as dangerous animals, to which harsh methods should be applied, then in the 1880s. principles of humanism began to appear among psychiatrists.
In 1889, the young doctor Pyotr Petrovich was sent to Nizhny Novgorod to reform the work of the city psychiatric hospital. Kashchenko was of the opinion that patients should not be subjected to all sorts of restrictions, on the contrary, they should be socialized. Based on such convictions, he created the Lyakhovo colony on the basis of the clinic, where people suffering from mental illness worked in greenhouses, workshops and vegetable gardens. Pyotr Petrovich Kashchenko considered occupational therapy not as a panacea, but as one of the methods of treatment. Book readings, theatrical performances and even tea parties were organized for patients.
Kashchenko was able to change the attitude of the public towards the mentally ill. People began to show them compassion, sympathy and a desire to help. In this work, the young doctor also proved himself to be an excellent organizer, because not everyone could convince merchants to finance a mental hospital.
Moving to Moscow
Kashchenko worked in Nizhny Novgorod for fifteen years, and during this time his hospital has become one of the best in the country. When in 1904 the question arose of who to appoint as the new chief physician of the Moscow Psychiatric Clinic at Kanatchikova Dacha, Pyotr Petrovich's candidacy was out of competition.
Kashchenkocame to Moscow and successfully began to introduce his methods of psychiatric care here. The first thing he did was remove the bars from the windows of the hospital. He doubled the salaries of the staff and created new positions: "uncles" and "nannies".
In 1905 the revolution broke out. Petr Petrovich supported the uprising, helped the revolutionaries financially and, together with his brother, formed flying medical teams to help the wounded.
Kashchenko was a determined and even desperate person. After the defeat of the rebels, he, not caring for his own safety, helped his comrades to escape, who were wanted by the king's guards. At that time, Pyotr Petrovich was already a well-known Russian psychiatrist, and they did not dare to touch him. The doctor headed a new zemstvo psychiatric hospital in the capital, which quickly became exemplary and one of the best in all of Europe.
Recent years
Kashchenko's authority in Russia was very high. In 1918, he took the post of head of the Central Neuro-Psychiatric Commission of the People's Commissariat of He alth of the RSFSR and, in fact, became the country's chief psychiatrist.
The talented doctor wanted to make Soviet psychiatry the best in the world, but his he alth let him down. Petr Petrovich suffered from a stomach disease that required surgical intervention. The operation provoked complications, and on April 19, 1920, Kashchenko died at the age of 61. He was buried in Moscow, at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Memory
Pyotr Petrovich Kashchenko is perhaps less known to the population of our country than the Moscow Psychiatric Hospital No. 1, once calledin his honor. Although it bore the name of Kashchenko in 1922-1994, and now it is the hospital of N. A. Alekseev, who initiated its construction.
The name of Pyotr Petrovich was given to the St. Petersburg psychiatric hospital No. 1, which was created under his direct supervision in 1904-1905. After the opening of the clinic, Kashchenko was the head doctor in it.
In April 1961, a bronze bust of a psychiatrist on a granite pedestal was unveiled in front of the main building of the hospital. Also, the regional psycho-neurological hospital and a street in Nizhny Novgorod bear the name of Kashchenko.
