TO THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTHDAY OF THE FOUNDER OF THE UKRAINIAN SCHOOL OF ELECTROPHYSIOLOGY VASYL YURIYOVYCH CHAHOVETS

Abstract

The article is devoted to the main stages of the life path and scientific activity of the outstanding Ukrainian physiologist, academician, doctor of medical sciences, professor, head of the Department of Physiology at the Kyiv Medical Institute, Vasyl Yuriyovych Chahovets (1873–1941). The work highlights the stages of formation of V. Yu. Chahovets as a unique personality and researcher, and analyzed the scientific achievements of the scientist, his organizational and creative achievements.
Vasyl Chahovets was born on April 30, 1873 in Poltava region. From an early age, Vasyl was distinguished by his thirst for knowledge, he studied excellently at the gymnasium. He received his higher education at the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg and during 1898–1902 worked as a military doctor in the Lukovsky regiment, which was located near Warsaw. Not limited to medical practice, in 1899 Chagovec passed his doctoral exams at the University of Warsaw.
Later, Chahovets returned to the Military Medical Academy and worked as a private associate professor. The result of the beginning of his scientific activity was the defense of a dissertation on the topic "Essay of electrical phenomena on living tissues from the point of view of the latest physicochemical theories" in 1906.
In 1910, Vasyl Chahovets was elected to the position of professor and head of the Department of Physiology of the Faculty of Medicine at Kyiv St. Volodymyr University. While working here, Chahovets organized a physiological laboratory. Over the next 20 years, a significant reform of higher education was carried out in Ukraine. As a result, the Kyiv Medical Institute was created on the basis of three medical faculties of St. Volodymyr University, where Vasyl Chahovets worked as the head of the Department of Normal Physiology.
It is important that the Ukrainian physiologist is one of the developers of the ionic theory of bioelectric potentials, substantiated the proposition about the change of electric charges on the inner and outer surface of the cell membrane in response to irritation. The merit of Professor Chahovets is the use of mathematical formulas in the study of the mechanisms of biological electricity [9]. Professor Vasyl Chahovets was the first to apply the theory of electrolytic dissociation to explain electrophysiological processes, took part in the development of the theory of bioelectric potentials and the creation of a new direction of research - physicochemical physiology Prominent Ukrainian physiologist, professor Vasyl Chahovets died in May 1941 in Kyiv at the age of 68, buried at the Lukyanivskyi cemetery. The results of his research continue to occupy a worthy place among the achievements of modern physiology, and the figure of an outstanding scientist deserves the respect of his descendants.