In the Astrakhan Regional Scientific Library named after. N.K. Krupskaya held annual local history readings from the series “Living Memory” “Life is short, science is endless”, dedicated to scientists, Astrakhan scientists who have become part of Russian and world science.
Among the heroes of the readings is Honorary Citizen of Astrakhan, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor of Astrakhan State Medical University N.P. Demichev, after whom one of the streets of our city is named, epidemiologist I.O. Deminsky and epidemiologist, doctor of medical sciences, professor V.F. Shubin.
A message about Professor Vasily Fedorovich Shubin, director of the Research Institute for the Study of Leprosy from 1952 to 1974, was presented by Tatyana Levina, head of the history center of the Astrakhan State Medical University:
“The merit of Vasily Fedorovich, a doctor-examiner at the leper colony (from 1929 to 1934), was the identification of all patients with leprosy in the Astrakhan region, which he walked over the years, from village to village, examining the population and identifying patients. This allowed Vasily Fedorovich to create for the first time a file of patients in the Astrakhan region for this disease. As director of the only research institute for the study of leprosy in the Soviet Union, Professor Shubin set a course for the professional training of doctors of all specialties, organizing and conducting All-Union and Republican scientific and practical conferences on leprosy, and the widespread introduction of scientific research into practice. 22 employees of the ASMI (currently Astrakhan State Medical University) defended their dissertations on leprosy.”
Tatyana Levina also said that in one of her speeches in 1977 at a meeting of the Academic Council of the Institute V.F. Shubin made an epidemiological forecast that by the year 2000 there will be no patients with leprosy. And this forecast was confirmed in practice.
“Today, on the territory of the former research institute for the study of leprosy, there is a scientific and educational complex of our medical university. Life poses new challenges and they have to be solved, and the memory of the modest director, professor, doctor of medical sciences. Vasily Fedorovich Shubin will remain in the history of healthcare in the Astrakhan region,” noted Tatyana Aleksandrovna.
