Lev Aleksandrovich Tarasevich

Tarasevich, Lev Aleksandrovich

 

Born Feb. 2 (14), 1868, in Tiraspol’; died June 12, 1927, near Dresden; buried in Moscow. Soviet microbiologist and pathologist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1926).

Tarasevich graduated from Novorossiia University in Odessa in 1891. From 1900 to 1902 he worked with E. Metchnikoff (I. I. Mechnikov) in Paris. Between 1908 and 1924 he was a professor at the Advanced Courses for Women at the Second Moscow University. In 1918, Tarasevich founded a center in Moscow for testing serums and vaccines; he also served as the director of the center, which is now the L. A. Tarasevich State Scientific Research Institute for the Standardization and Testing of Medicinal Biological Preparations.

Tarasevich conducted research on hemolysins and established that the lymph glands and spleen, which are rich in macrophages, are capable of hemolysis, whereas the bone marrow lacks this ability. His discovery was of great significance in understanding anaphylaxis and the role of the reticuloendothelial system in immunity.

Tarasevich wrote works on vaccination against various infections and on the epidemiology and prophylaxis of tuberculosis. In 1924, in Moscow, he founded and served as editor of Zhurnal mikrobiologii, patologii i infektsionnykh boleznei (Journal of Microbiology, Pathology, and Infectious Diseases; since 1935, Zhurnal mikrobiologii, epidemiologii i immunobiologii [Journal of Microbiology, Epidemiology, and Immunobiology]).

WORKS

K ucheniiu o gemolizinakh. Odessa, 1902.
Kursobshchei patologii, 4th ed. Moscow-Leningrad, 1923.

REFERENCE

Didenko, S. I. “Krupnyi uchenyi i obshchestvennyi deiatel’ (K 25-letiiu so dnia smerti L. A. Tarasevicha).” Priroda, 1953 [no.] 2.