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.
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