Polunin, Aleksei

Born Sept. 19 (Oct. 1), 1820, in Bezhetsk; died Oct. 3 (15), 1888, in Moscow. Russian pathologist.

In 1842, Polunin graduated from the medical faculty of Moscow University. In 1849 he became a professor there and in the same year founded the chair of pathological anatomy. In 1869 he organized the chair of general pathology and became the first to teach a course in general pathology in Russia.

Polunin pathoanatomically described cholera and on the basis of numerous autopsies established the curability of pulmonary tuberculosis. During the years that he was dean of the medical faculty of Moscow University (1863–78) he initiated a series of progressive reforms in teaching methods, including the organization of special clinics.

Polunin was president of the Moscow Physics and Medical Society from 1866 to 1870. He was one of the first medical essayists in Russia. From 1851 to 1859 he was editor and publisher of the Moskovskii vrachebnyi zhurnal (Moscow Physicians’ Journal). It was here that R. Virchow’s Cellular Pathology was first published in the Russian language.