Kashchenko, Petr

Born Dec 28, 1858 (Jan. 9, 1859), in Eisk, in present-day first Krasnodar Krai; died Feb. 19, 1920, in Moscow. Russian psychiatrist and public figure.

In 1881, Kashchenko was expelled from Moscow University for revolutionary activity and exiled from the city. In 1885 he graduated from the medical department of the University of Kazan. From 1889 to 1904 he was director of the psychiatric hospital of the Nizhny Novgorod zemstvo (district assembly) in Liakhovo colony. As director of the Moscow Psychiatric Hospital from 1904 to 1906 and the St. Petersburg Psychiatric Hospital from 1907 to 1917 (they both now bear his name), Kashchenko transformed both into model medical institutions. In 1905 he participated in revolutionary events in Moscow. He was the organizer and chairman of the first Russian Central Statistical Bureau for the Registration of Psychiatric Patients. In May 1917, Kashchenko became head of the neuropsychiatric section of the Council of Medical Boards, and from 1918 to 1920 he directed the neuropsychiatric care subdivision of the People’s Commissariat of Public Health of the RSFSR. Kashchenko developed the principles of organization for the treatment of the mentally ill in Russia and advanced a number of progressive ideas (the need for outpatient care, the organization of patronage, the no-restraint system, occupational therapy).