First dissertation in medical geography at the Medico-Surgical Academy

Little-known scientific facts related to the circumstances of writing and defending the dissertation for the Medico-Surgical Academy Eduard Blaschke entitled "Medical topography of the Novo-Arkhangelsk port, the main Russian settlement in North America” were considered. Medical topographic descriptions of various territories and settlements of the Russian Empire were numerous in the 18th–19th centuries, but dissertation studies of this kind are rare. The authors of the article carried out a bibliographic work covering a wide range of reliable sources in order to identify the earliest dissertation research in the field of medical geography. According to updated information, E. Blaschke’s work stored in the library of the Kirov Military Medical Academy was the first scientific work in the history of the Medical and Surgical Academy in the field of medical geography, presented as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Medicine. The dissertation was written based on E. Blaschke’s materials and stay in the Russian colonial possessions in North America as the head doctor of the Novo-Arkhangelsk Hospital. Local living conditions, lifestyle, occupation, and nature of work and leisure of the population were systematically described, and as a result, due to all these reasons, since endemic diseases can be associated not only with climatic causes the endemic specificity of the incidence of the inhabitants of this region, and with a wider range of local territorial factors. E. Blaschke’s medical-geographical research was of great scientific and practical importance for its time. It was timely and relevant, but today this work is not known to a wide range of specialists, which, of course, has a significant gap in the knowledge of the history of the formation and development of medical geography, which needs to be replenished. The historical research conducted by the authors of the article allows us to highly appreciate the role of graduates of the Medical and Surgical Academy in healthcare system’s organization in the Russian colonial possessions in America: all the chief doctors of the central hospital of the settlements were its graduates. Of particular interest is the experience of E. Blaschke in combating the smallpox epidemic in the Aleutian Islands and the local population’s mass vaccination.