The Ukrainian Poet K. Bililovsky as a Doctor

VASYLYEV K.K., ARNIS VІKSNA

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K. Bililovsky (1859-1938) is the Ukrainian poet, translator and cultural figure. He received
higher medical education and he earned his living as a doctor the whole lifetime. Great literature
was devoted to him, but his work as a doctor has not been investigated yet. The purpose of this
study, in contrast to the already carried research, to enlighten the stages of K. Bililovsky’s
medical practice. At the same time we are bringing new historical sources, such as archival and
published ones, that dropped out of sight of the researchers of the doctor and the Ukrainian
poet’s life and work. For the first time the stages of K. Bililovsky’s medical biography were
clarified and documented.
He received his medical education at the Universities of Leipzig (1875-1876), Vienna
(1876-1878), Dorpat (1879-1881) and again in Vienna (1882) and he graduated from the
University of Jena in 1883. After that he worked as a doctor in Poltava. In 1885-1891 he was
a policeman doctor in Petropavlovsk (now in Kazakhstan). In 1891-1892 he worked as a military
doctor. Then he retired and served in the civil service in St. Petersburg. In 1895 he defended his
thesis for the degree of Doctor of Medicine. In 1899-1905 K. Bililovsky worked as Kurland
assistant of the provincial medical inspector in Mitau (now Jelgava, Latvia). Since 1906 he was
at the same position in the Olonets province (Petrozavodsk), and in 1907-1910 as a provincial
medical inspector in the same place. In 1910-1913 he worked as Taurida provincial medical
inspector (Simferopol). In 1913-1920 he was a chief physician of Feodosia Marine medicalmonitoring
station. During the Civil War he joined the White movement. In 1920-1925 he worked
as a doctor in the city of Simferopol. In 1925-1932 K. Bililovsky worked as an eye doctor in the
Soviet dispensary in Rasht (Iran). The last years of his life were spent in Simferopol, where he
died and was buried.
He is an author of several published scientific publications. In 1887 his health statistics
and health sketch of Petropavlovsk were published. In this study he gave, for the first time, a
fairly complete picture of the health of the area, completely unknown until now in this regard. In
1890 he made ovariotomy in Kazakhstan for the first time. He reported on the results of his
successful gynecological activities in the medical society in St. Petersburg. So far his medical
research and ethnographic essays are of scientific interest. His experience of the prison doctor
was reflected in the monograph on the physical type of criminal. Finally, he explored the city of
Yalta in a sanitary point of view, which allowed him to specify what measures could and should
take to improve the health status of the city. The abovementioned inevitably would lead to the
improvement of public health. For the first time the historical sources, introduced into scientific
use, allow better understanding of K. Bililovsky’s poetic legacy.[/restab]

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VASYLYEV K.K. – Dr., Professor, Science, Professor, Odesa National Medical University (Ukraine)

ARNIS VІKSNA – Dr., Professor, Academician, Latvian Academy of Sciences (Latvian).[/restab]

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