Nikolai Nikolaevich Elanskii

Born Apr. 20 (May 2), 1894, in Novokhopersk; died Aug. 31, 1964, in Moscow. Soviet surgeon, Hero of Socialist Labor (1964), Honored Scientist of the RSFSR (1942), lieutenant general of the medical service (1944). Member of the CPSU from 1943.

Elanskii graduated from the Military Medical Academy in 1917; he was a student of S. P. Fedorov. In 1937 he became chairman there of the subdepartment of general surgery; in 1938 he reestablished the subdepartment of field surgery at the S. M. Kirov Military Medical Academy founded in 1931 by V. A. Oppel’, and chaired it until 1941. From 1946 to 1947 he was head of the subdepartment of general surgery of the academy. From 1941 to 1945 he was chief surgeon at the front. In 1947 he became head of faculty surgery at the First Moscow Medical Institute and simultaneously chief surgeon of the Soviet Army. In 1921, Elanskii became the first person in the USSR to prepare standard sera for blood group determination. His principal works were devoted to problems of military field surgery, the use of antibiotics in the surgical treatment of wounds, surgery of the stomach, esophagus, lungs, and mediastinum, and the problems of oncology and endocrinology. He was an honorary member of the All-Russian Society of Surgeons, the N. I. Pirogov Society, the Czechoslovakian Society of Surgeons, and the International Association of Surgeons. He received the State Prize of the USSR in 1952. He was awarded two Orders of Lenin, eight other orders, and various medals.