Your Epoch is not for Trying. It's for Living and for Dying

The article is devoted to biographies of three Russian physicians of the Silver Age (a period in the History of Russian culture between 1890 and 1917). They made early, significant and internationally recognized contribution into medical science and became eponymous, although social disasters of the twentieth century caused deep impact on their subsequent lives and careers, so their role was shadowed from global medical community. The article analyzes biographies and academic achievements of A-F.K. Siewert (aka: Zivert, Ziwert, von Siewert) (1872-1922), known for first description of the hereditary dyskinesia of cilia (as a triad of: situs inversus of the viscera, abnormal frontal sinuses producing sinusitis and bronchiectasis); S.S. Abramov (1875-1951), discoverer of primary idiopathic myocarditis, and N.I. Taratynov (1887-1919), who was the first in description of a local form of histiocytosis X (solitary eosinophilic granuloma) and predicted the eosinophilic origin of Charcot-Leyden crystals. The contribution of these scientists into Medicine is reviewed in context of historical epoch, on background of their different individual social choices and the fate of their families. Besides their eponymous descriptions, other medical priorities of these scholars are analyzed. Some previously unpublished materials from their family archives are presented, which witness for possible existence of unknown prototype for the main hero of 'Doctor Zhivago' novel by B.L. Pasternak and for probable priorities of doctor Zivert - in active diastole concept, or doctor Abramov - in description of dilated cardiomyopathy. The factors facilitating rapid development of theoretical and practical Medicine in imperial Russia of late XIX - early XX centuries are discussed. The conclusion of the author is that in any epoch, even the most cruel and unfavorable one, the creative activity is a way to social immortality (19 figs, 68 refs).

Situs inversus, bronchiectasis, and sinusitis and its relation to immotile cilia: history of the diseases and their discoverers-Manes Kartagener and Bjorn Afzelius

The relationship of Kartagener's syndrome to immobile cilia syndrome is a fascinating merging of clinical observations and basic science in Zurich, Stockholm, and Toronto. In 1933, Manes Kartagener, a Zurich pulmonary physician, reported four patients with the triad of sinusitis, bronchiectasis, and situs inversus. In the following decades, he reviewed reports of hundreds of cases, but the fact that the male patients with the condition never had offspring eluded his notice. In the 1970s, Bjorn Afzelius, a Ph.D. ultrastructuralist from Stockholm, reported cilia immotility in infertile males, some of the cases occurring in families. Half of the cases had Kartagener's triad. The observation of Afzelius was soon applied to children by Jennifer Sturgess, a Ph.D. ultrastructuralist, and her medical colleagues in Toronto. With over 500 MEDLINE references since 1966 on Kartagener's and over 1,000 references on immotile cilia, the causes of the pulmonary infections have become clearer as the patients demonstrate impaired clearance of mucus with resultant sinus and bronchial disease. The cause of the situs inversus remains elusive to this day. It is appropriate to call the condition Kartagener-Afzelius syndrome.