Starokadomsky Leonid Mikhailovich
(27.03.(08.04).1875–27.01.1962)
Physician, arctic explorer.
Born in Saratov in the family of a small railway employee.
After graduating in 1899 with honors from the Military Medical
Academy in St. Petersburg, he served in the 7th Revel Infantry
Regiment and in the Brest-Litovsk Hospital.
In 1903, Starokadomsky was transferred to the Navy Department and
seconded to the Kronstadt Hospital.
Here he suffered a great misfortune - when he opened the corpse,
he contracted corpse poison, as a result of which he had his left
hand amputated.
Despite his disability, Starokadomsky was left in military
service.
In 1905, he worked as part of a commission for medical
examination of prisoners of war returning from Japan.
From the Far East traveled to St. Petersburg by sea.
Despite the apparent exposure to seasickness, swimming made a
huge positive impression on Starokadomsky.
In 1909, having brilliantly defended his thesis for the degree of
Doctor of Medicine, Starokadomsky received and accepted an
invitation to the position of the ship's doctor of the icebreaker
steamer
"Taimyr", which he was preparing together with the icebreaking
steamer
"Vaigach" for a hydrographic expedition to the Arctic Ocean.
He participated in this expedition without interruption from the
beginning to the end: from the moment of preparation to the full
completion.
From 1910 to 1915, the expedition court under the leadership of
the first I.S.
Sergeev,
and after his leaving due to illness in 1913,
B.A.
Vilkitsky
made five voyages to the Arctic Ocean, making a huge amount of
hydrographic observations.
In 1913, the expedition made the largest geographical discovery
of the 20th century — to the north of the
Taimyr Peninsula,
an unknown, vast, mountainous land was discovered, which the
discoverers called the Land of Nicholas II.
The first to notice the unknown land almost simultaneously were
the "Taimyr" doctor Starokadomsky and the watch supervisors of the "Vaigach" N.I.
Evgenov
and K.K.
Neupokoev.
To the southeast of this land, Starokadomsky discovered another
small islet.
In 1914 - 1915
the expedition for the first time passed the Northeast passage
from east to west.
The constant participant of all campaigns, Starokadomsky enjoyed
great respect from all members of the expedition and was for them
indisputable authority.
Despite the injury, he himself carried out numerous works and
managed to do surgical operations with one hand.
Numerous scientific and medical duties provided him with a huge
workload, but Starokadomsky found more time for regular detailed
diary, on the basis of which he later wrote his well-known book “Five
voyages in the Arctic Ocean”.
During the voyages, he collected significant collections of
marine and land animals, as well as plants.
After the expedition ended, Starokadomsky stayed in the North,
worked as a doctor on the construction of the Murmansk railway and
in Arkhangelsk, where he was one of the founders and teachers of the
first national university.
In 1920 he was appointed sanitary inspector of the Naval Forces,
for many years he headed the medical service of the fleet.
In 1930, after 27 years of military service, Starokadomsky
retired, but did not break with the Arctic, participating in sailing
the expeditionary ship "Perseus", and in 1932–1934.
as a flagship doctor on ships delivering cargo to Kolyma.
Starting from 1936 and almost until his death, Starokadomsky
worked in the Central Research Laboratory for Hygiene and Sanitation
of Water Transport of the USSR Ministry of Health.
He wrote over 130 publications on various issues of water
transport hygiene that are of great scientific and applied
importance, in particular for the organization of polar expeditions.
Starokadomsky owned several foreign languages and translated
into Russian a number of scientific publications on special medical
issues, collaborated in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.
Until the end of his life, he maintained contact with his
comrades, members of a hydrographic expedition to the Arctic Ocean.
Vvedenskoe Cemetery |
Starokadomsky died in Moscow and was buried at the
Vvedensky
cemetery next to his son-composer.
Stella of rapitaqui granita.
An island in the Laptev Sea
southeast of the Bolshevik Island of the Severnaya Zemlya
archipelago.
Named in 1914 by members of a hydrographic expedition to the
Arctic Ocean.
|