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 The name of Leon Abrarovich Orbeli (June 25, 1882 - December 9, 1958) is associated with major discoveries in the physiology of the central nervous system, the higher nervous activity of humans and animals, the sensory organs of the autonomic nervous system, and digestion.
L. A. Orbeli was born in the village of Tsakhkadzor in the family of a lawyer. After graduating from the Tiflis gymnasium with a gold medal, L.A. Orbeli entered the St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy, within the walls of which he made his first steps in science. While still a student, under the influence and impression of the lectures of the great Russian physiologist IP Pavlov, he began to work in the field of physiology. In 1903, the works of the student Orbeli were awarded a gold medal.
On the recommendation of Academician I.P. Pavlov, the young researcher was sent on a business trip to England, Germany, France, Italy, where he performed a number of experiments on the physiology of the autonomic nervous system. Later, working under the leadership of IP Pavlov, L.A. Orbeli received excellent training.
Over the years, the main direction of his creative activity was clearly defined. The scientist focused his attention mainly on the study of the nervous regulation of functions. He discovered the adaptive-notrophic function of the sympathetic nervous system. L.A. Orbeli and his students found that the regulatory effects of the sympathetic nervous system extend to skeletal muscles, receptors and the central nervous system itself, including the cerebral cortex. Orbeli's doctrine of the adaptive-trophic role of the sympathetic nervous system makes it possible to correctly understand and analyze numerous clinical observations on the violation of trophic processes in various pathological conditions.
Evaluating these works, I. P. Pavlov wrote that “the setting of the fact that solves the almost 100-year-old riddle of the so-called trophic innervation, which should explain the enormous mass of both physiological and mental phenomena of the animal world, is a tremendous merit of L. A. Orbeli ".
Successfully developing the research on human physiology and pathology begun by IP Pavlov, L.A. Orbeli created the doctrine of the interaction of afferent systems. He paid special attention to the problem of pain, which is of great practical importance for the clinic of nervous diseases and psychiatry. Orbeli and his collaborators also obtained valuable information on the physiology of the sense organs (vision, hearing) and the cerebellum. These works played an important role in the development of modern neurophysiology. But the most important merit of the scientist is the creation of evolutionary physiology, a new direction of physiological science.
L. A. Orbeli believed that the clinic provides the most valuable material for the construction of evolutionary physiology. He wrote that “long before the emergence of Darwinian evolutionary theory, attempts were made on the part of practical physicians to seek an explanation of some symptoms in the evolutionary past of an animal organism, in particular a person. We now use the help of the clinic, observing patients both in the nervous and in psychiatric clinics in order to understand the relationship between the development of functions by assessing the manifestations of the disease process, violations of basic functions, both the highest and primitive, gross found in phylogeny and ontogeny, and the picture that the clinic gives. At every step we find confirmation of the fact that many pathological processes are, to a certain extent, a reflection of the path that the organism has traveled in the process of evolution. "
After the death of I. P. Pavlov, L. A. Orbeli became the head of Soviet physiological science. Under his leadership, within the walls of large institutes, the Physiological Institute named after I.P.Pavlov of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and at the Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Pathology of Higher Nervous Activity named after I.P. Pavlov of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (in Koltushi), research in the most diverse fields of physiological science developed on a broad front.
In 1939 Academician Orbeli was elected Academician-Secretary of the Biological Department, and in 1942 - Vice-President of the USSR Academy of Sciences. While in this position during the difficult years of the Great Patriotic War, he directed the entire biological science of the country. In 1943, Colonel-General of the Medical Service L.A. Orbeli was appointed head of the S.M. Kirov Military Medical Academy. In the same year he was elected academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR, and a year later - academician of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences.
For his services to the Motherland, the scientist was awarded four Orders of Lenin, two Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of the Red Star and many medals. L. A. Orbeli's book "Lectures on the Physiology of the Nervous System" was awarded the State Prize.
L. A. Orbeli was a member of many foreign academies and scientific societies.
His talent, humanism, and a sensitive attitude towards his employees were an attractive force for the creation of a large physiological school. The ideas and thoughts of L.A. Orbeli found further creative development in the works of his students and followers, in the activities of the Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry named after I.M.Sechenov of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, which he created in Leningrad.
V. A. Govyrin, A. I. Karamyan
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