Sergei Davidenkov

Born Aug. 13 (25), 1880. in Riga; died July 2, 1961, in Leningrad. Soviet neuropathologist; academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1945) and Honored Scientist of the RSFSR (1934).

Davidenkov graduated from the department of medicine of Moscow University in 1904. Beginning in 1912 he was head of the subdepartment of nervous diseases at the Kharkov Women’s Medical Institute; he took the same position at the University of Baku in 1920, acting simultaneously (1921–23) as head of the university itself. From 1932 until the end of his life he was director of the subdepartment of nervous diseases of the Leningrad Advanced Medical Training Institute. He worked under I. P. Pavlov from 1933 to 1937. Davidenkov made extensive use of physiological methods of research and instituted them in the clinical treatment of nervous diseases. His principal works dealt with injuries of the nervous system, ataxia, aphasia, encephalitis, occupational pathology, hereditary diseases, and neuroses. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45. Davidenkov was chief neuropathologist at the Leningrad front. He was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Star, and medals.