June 27 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Volodymyr Petrovych Vorobiov — an outstanding anatomist and Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1934).
Volodymyr Petrovych graduated from the Richelieu Lyceum in 1897 and from the Medical Faculty of Kharkiv University in 1903.
One of the first researchers to study functional anatomy, Vorobiov discovered new principles governing the structural organisation of the nervous system. He proposed a method for the functional monitoring of organs during a person’s lifetime using implanted electrodes. He further developed the concept of the integrity of the organism and studied the influence of functions and physical activity on morphogenesis (the formation of organs).
Volodymyr Petrovych established the world’s first and only Museum of Human Development in Kharkiv and created the original five-volume “Atlas of Human Anatomy,” which has been used by generations of medical students and physicians to study anatomy.
V. P. Vorobiov was a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Ukrainian SSR. He was awarded the V. I. Lenin Prize (1927) and the Order of Lenin. The Presidium of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR established the V. P. Vorobiov Prize, awarded once every three years for the best work in the field of human anatomy.
Volodymyr Petrovych died on September 30, 1937, in Kharkiv.
In Odesa, a street (formerly Poleva Street) was named after V. P. Vorobiov. Four major clinical institutions are located on this street.
Read more about Volodymyr Petrovych Vorobiov on our website “They Left Their Mark on the History of Odesa”: https://odesa-memory.info/ru/?id=420
Article prepared for the project by Leonid Averbukh, physician and journalist.
