One of the highest forms of recognition of the merits of a person is when his name becomes an element of folklore. But in the case of the doctor Petr Petrovich Kashchenko, everything is not so clear. His surname has actually become synonymous with the word "mental hospital". Although the doctor himself had little to do with tranquilizers and straitjackets. He was a very interesting person, a revolutionary in medicine and politics.
Biography
Petr Petrovich Kashchenko was born in the Kuban, in Yeisk, 12/28/1858. His father, Petr Fedorovich, a hereditary Cossack, was the founder of the Kashchenko medical dynasty. He graduated from the Medical and Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg and became a military doctor. Mother, Alexandra Pavlovna Chernikova, was the daughter of a college assessor.
The family brought up seven children. Peter was the first child, from childhood he became interested in medicine and decided to follow in his father's footsteps. Pyotr Fedorovich died when his eldest son was sixteen. However, he managed to instill in him a craving for medical activity and democratic views.
In the Kashchenko family, all children received a worthy education. Peter's younger brother, Vsevolod, also became a doctor, a defectologist. When sons and daughters grew up, Alexandra Pavlovna went to the monastery and devoted herself to God.
Study
In 1876, Petr Petrovich Kashchenko entered the Kiev University of St. Vladimir at the Faculty of Medicine. There was not enough money to study, but the mother was able to procure a special scholarship for her son. Kashchenko immediately stood out among other students with his brilliant knowledge. The professor noted this, and soon Peter was transferred to Moscow University.
At the university, Kashchenko not only studied, but also created a revolutionary circle in which he discussed with other students the political reforms of Emperor Alexander II. Soon the gendarmes began to watch him.
In 1881, Petr Petrovich Kashchenko was preparing for graduation, but then news came that the Volunteers had killed Alexander II. Students raised funds for a wreath to the emperor and wanted to choose the people who would take him to St. Petersburg. The excellent student Kashchenko publicly condemned such an initiative, and a talkative student was expelled from the university two months before the diploma. By that time, he was already married to a girl named Vera Aleksandrovna Gorenkina. Pyotr Petrovich and his wife were sent to Stavropol in exile. The only thing he was allowed to do there was to teach singing in a female gymnasium.
Four years later, Kashchenko was able to complete his education at Kazan University, where unreliable students studied. At one time, it was this university that graduated from Vladimir Lenin. In Kazan, Petr Petrovich became interested in psychiatry, studying under the guidance of Dr. Rogozin, director of the city psychiatric hospital.
Reformer
At that time, Russian psychiatry was at the stage of reform. Whereas previously psychiatric patients were perceived as dangerous animals, to which strict methods should be applied, then in the 1880s. psychiatrists began to appear the principles of humanism.
In 1889, a young doctor, Petr Petrovich, was sent to Nizhny Novgorod to reform the work of the city psychiatric hospital. Kashchenko was of the opinion that patients should not be subjected to all kinds of restrictions, on the contrary, they need to be socialized. Based on such beliefs, he created a Lyakhovo colony on the basis of the clinic, where people suffering from mental illness worked in greenhouses, workshops and vegetable gardens. Petr Petrovich Kashchenko considered occupational therapy not as a panacea, but as one of the methods of treatment. For patients, book readings, theatrical performances, and even tea parties were arranged.
Kashchenko was able to change the attitude of the public towards psychiatric patients. People began to show compassion, sympathy and a desire to help them. In this work, the young doctor proved himself as an excellent organizer, because not everyone could convince merchants to finance a mental hospital.
Moving to Moscow
In Nizhny Novgorod, Kashchenko worked for fifteen years, and during this time his hospital became one of the best in the country. When the question arose in 1904 about who to appoint as the new chief physician of the Moscow Psychiatric Clinic at Kanatchikova’s dacha, Petr Petrovich’s candidacy was out of competition.
Kashchenko came to Moscow and successfully began to introduce his methods of psychiatric care here. First of all, he removed the bars from the windows of the hospital. The staff doubled the salary and created new positions: “uncles” and “nannies”.
In 1905, a revolution broke out. Pyotr Petrovich supported the uprising, helped the revolutionaries financially and, together with his brother, formed volatile medical teams that assist the wounded.
Kashchenko was a determined and even desperate man. After the defeat of the rebels, he, not caring for his own safety, helped his comrades, whom the tsar’s security wanted, to hide. At that time, Petr Petrovich was already a famous Russian psychiatrist, and they did not dare to touch him. The doctor headed a new zemstvo psychiatric hospital in the capital, which quickly became a model and one of the best in all of Europe.
Last years
The authority of Kashchenko in Russia was very high. In 1918, he took the post of head of the Central Neuropsychiatric Commission of the People's Commissar of the RSFSR and in fact became the country's main psychiatrist.
A talented doctor wanted to make Soviet psychiatry the best in the world, but his health failed him. Petr Petrovich suffered from a stomach disease that required surgical intervention. The operation provoked complications, and on April 19, 1920, Kashchenko died at the age of 61. He was buried in Moscow, at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Memory
Petr Petrovich Kashchenko, perhaps, is less known to the population of our country than the Moscow mental hospital No. 1, once named in his honor. Although she bore the name Kashchenko in 1922-1994, and now she is a hospital of N. A. Alekseev, which initiated her construction.
The name of Peter Petrovich was assigned to St. Petersburg Psychiatric Hospital No. 1, which was created under his direct supervision in 1904-1905. After the opening of the hospital, Kashchenko was the head doctor in it.
In April 1961, a bronze bust of a psychiatrist on a granite pedestal was opened in front of the main building of the hospital. Also, the name Kashchenko is the regional neuropsychiatric hospital and the street in Nizhny Novgorod.