User:Herostratus/Nikolai Arendt

Nikolai Fedorovich Arendt (Николай Фёдорович Арендт) (1785 - 1859) was a Russian physician. He had a long and illustrious career, and is best remembered as the personal physician of Czar Nicholas I and as the doctor who treated Alexander Pushkin on his deathbed.

Early life and training
Arendt was born in 1785 in into a family of ethnic German craftspeople in Kazan. Arendt's grandfather Johann, a Lutheran coppersmith, had immigrated to Russia from Prussia, and moved to Moscow in the first half of the 18th Century and became a Russian subject. Arendt's father, Fyodor Ivanovich Arendt, was born in Moscow in 1755. When Nikolai Arendt was born, his father was serving as doctor in the Kazan Admiralty Hospital. Later Fyodor Arendt moved with his family to Tallinn in Estonia (then part of the Russian Empire) where he worked as a staff doctor for the police, then to Moscow where he held the same position.

Nikolai Arendt enrolled in the Moscow Medical and Surgical Academy. This institution was closed in 1804 and Arendt, along with the other Academy students, transferred to the St. Petersburg Medical-Surgical Academy, from which he was graduated in 1805.

Arendt was assigned to St. Petersburg General Hospital for post-graduate training. He worked there for about seven months and was then drafted into the army.

First years
Russia at this time, after participating in the disastrous War of the Third Coalition against Napoleon in 1805, was again preparing for war, the War of the Fourth Coalition. In April of 1806 Arendt was assigned to the Navaginsky Musketeer Regiment which fought in many battles. The war ended with the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807. Arendt then served in the Finnish War against Sweden in 1808-1809 which concluded with the Treaty of Hamina.

Arendt participated in many bloody battles which provided him with extensive practice in combat medicine. He became renowned as a skillful and courageous surgeon, and in December 1809 he was awarded with the superlative gift of a diamond ring.

War of 1812
By the time of the French invasion of Russia in 1812, Arendt was a highly proficient doctor with considerable experience and theoretical knowledge, one of the best doctors in Russia. He was involved in many major battles of the war: Klyastitsy, Polotsk, Chasniki, Bautzen, Leipzig, and then on to the capture of Paris.

Arendt contemporaries noted his tireless energy, attention, and concern for the wounded as well as his extraordinarily successful outcomes. And Arendt advanced in his career, from Doctor First Class to division physician of the 13th Infantry Division and, by the end of the war, chief physician of the First Infantry Corps.

After the peace, Arendt remained in France as chief physician of the Russian occupation forces, where he lectured at the Sorbonne. He left France on March 10, 1815.

Arendt helped make significant progress in surgical techniques. According to historians, this was largely achieved through his unique talent as a diagnostician and his emphasis on diligent aftercare. Arendt was also an early adopter of antiseptic procedures, to which he attached the highest importance. To Arendt is attributed the saying

"A doctor must never stop learning"

According to contemporaries, he always followed this rule, not counting it shameful to learn from young scientists and physicians.

Postwar work
Upon his return to Russia, Arendt was appointed division physician of the the 12th Division, holding this post until September 21, 1819. After that, he was assigned to the position of senior physician for the Guards Cavalry. From Janyary 20, 1820, he was the chief physician of the Artillery Hospital in St. Petersburg.

At this time a revolution in Naples caused Russia to send a force to Austria; Arendt went as the army's chief physician. War was avoided by the Troppau Protocol of 1820...

(to be continued...)

Арендт, Николай Фёдорович