1904–2008
○ Heart attack
The oldest practicing surgeon in history and the key propagandist of Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign
A Leningrad professor, hearing of the young Uglov's surgical reports, called them 'the fabrications of Baron Munchausen', then examined the operations and withdrew the remark.
Born to a peasant family in Siberia, Uglov graduated from Saratov Medical Institute and served as a surgeon through the Winter War and the 900-day Siege of Leningrad. He pioneered operations on the esophagus, mediastinum, lungs, and heart, and earned a Guinness World Record as the oldest practicing surgeon, operating until age 102. During the 1985 anti-alcohol campaign, he was its key propagandist: his articles claiming that no dose of alcohol is acceptable and that drunkenness was alien to the Russian people were distributed nationwide, and he chaired the Union for the Struggle for National Sobriety. In his later years, he courted controversy by blaming alcoholism on a Jewish conspiracy and classifying rock music as a drug, aligning himself with the Russian nationalist right.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1929Graduated Saratov Medical Institute, district doctor
- 1939–1945Surgeon through the Winter War and Siege of Leningrad
- 1950–1991Head, Hospital Surgery Dept. No. 2, 1st Leningrad Medical Institute
- 1953–2006Editor-in-chief, Vestnik Khirurgii (Journal of Surgery)
- 1967Academician, USSR Academy of Medical Sciences
- 1985Published In the Captivity of Illusions; key propagandist of anti-alcohol campaign
- 1988Chairman, Union for the Struggle for National Sobriety
- 1994Guinness World Record: oldest practicing surgeon
Related historical events
- 1939.11–1940.03The Winter WarSenior surgeon on the Finnish frontIn the 1939 Winter War, he served as a senior surgeon in a medical battalion on the Finnish front.
- 1941–1944Siege of LeningradHospital surgical chief in besieged LeningradWhen German forces besieged Leningrad, he stayed in the city and worked as a hospital surgical chief for all 900 days.
- 1985–1988The Anti-Alcohol CampaignKey propagandist of the anti-alcohol campaignHe published articles warning of the dangers of alcohol and claiming that drunkenness was alien to the Russian people; these were distributed nationwide during the 1985-1988 campaign.
Winter War, the Siege of Leningrad and a school of thoracic surgery
In the 1939 Soviet-Finnish War Uglov served as a senior surgeon of a medical battalion on the Finnish front. When German forces began the blockade of Leningrad in 1941, he stayed in the besieged city and worked through all 900 days as head of the surgical department of one of its hospitals. By his own account, one reason he survived the starving city was that for a month he deputised for the hospital director and was therefore obliged to taste the patients' food in the kitchen. After the war he continued treating patients and doing research at the Leningrad State Institute for the Advanced Training of Doctors.
His wartime clinical experience set the direction of his scholarship. He defended a candidate's dissertation on mixed tumours (teratomas) of the presacral region in 1939 and a doctoral dissertation on resection of the lungs in 1949. In 1950 he took charge of Department of Hospital Surgery No. 2 at the 1st Leningrad Medical Institute and held it until 1991, and until 1972 he also directed the USSR Ministry of Health's Research Institute of Pulmonology. From this clinical base he trained a body of students who formed a large surgical school.
He was one of the first surgeons in the country to carry out operations on the esophagus and mediastinum with success, along with surgery for portal hypertension, pancreatic adenoma, lung disease, congenital and acquired heart defects and aortic aneurysm. In 1981 and 1982 he registered an invention, an artificial heart valve and a method of making it, and in 1961 he received the Lenin Prize for developing surgical methods of treating lung diseases. From 1953 to 2006 he was editor-in-chief of Vestnik Khirurgii, one of the country's oldest surgical journals, and he left more than 600 papers in scientific journals. In 1994 Guinness World Records listed him as the oldest practising surgeon and as having the longest surgical career, 65 years, and he performed an operation on the eve of his hundredth birthday before Guinness representatives who filmed it.