Bekhterev detailed biography. Contribution of V.M. Bekhterev in the formation and development of domestic psychology. Versions of the causes of death
“If the patient does not feel better after talking with the doctor, then this is not a doctor.”
V.M. Bekhterev
Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev (January 20, 1857 - December 24, 1927, Moscow) - an outstanding Russian physician, neuropathologist, physiologist, psychologist, founder of reflexology and pathopsychological trends in Russia, academician.
In 1907 he founded the Psychoneurological Institute in St. Petersburg, now named after Bekhterev.
Biography
He was born into the family of a petty civil servant in the village of Sorali, Yelabuga district, Vyatka province, presumably on January 20, 1857 (he was baptized on January 23, 1857). He was a representative of the ancient Vyatka family of Bekhterevs. Educated at the Vyatka Gymnasium and the St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy. At the end of the course (1878), Bekhterev devoted himself to the study of mental and nervous diseases and for this purpose he worked at the clinic of prof. I. P. Merzheevsky.
In 1879, Bekhterev was accepted as a full member of the St. Petersburg Society of Psychiatrists. And in 1884 he was sent abroad, where he studied with Dubois-Raymond (Berlin), Wundt (Leipzig), Meinert (Vienna), Charcot (Paris) and others. - Associate Professor of the St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy, and since 1885 he was a professor at Kazan University and head of the psychiatric clinic of the Kazan district hospital. While working at Kazan University, he created a psychophysiological laboratory and founded the Kazan Society of Neurologists and Psychiatrists. In 1893 he headed the Department of Nervous and Mental Diseases of the Medico-Surgical Academy. In the same year he founded the journal Neurological Bulletin. In 1894, Vladimir Mikhailovich was appointed a member of the medical council of the Ministry of the Interior, and in 1895 - a member of the military medical scientific council under the Minister of War and at the same time a member of the council of the mentally ill. From 1897 he also taught at the Women's Medical Institute.
Organized in St. Petersburg the Society of Psychoneurologists and the Society of Normal and experimental psychology and scientific organization of labor. He edited the journals "Review of Psychiatry, Neurology and Experimental Psychology", "Study and Education of Personality", "Issues of the Study of Labor" and others.
In November 1900, Bekhterev's two-volume "The pathways of the spinal cord and brain" was put forward Russian Academy Sciences for the Academician K.M. Baer Prize. In 1900 Bekhterev was elected chairman of the Russian Society for Normal and Pathological Psychology.
After the completion of work on the seven volumes of "Fundamentals of the Doctrine of the Functions of the Brain", Bekhterev's special attention as a scientist began to be attracted to the problems of psychology. Proceeding from the fact that mental activity arises as a result of the work of the brain, he considered it possible to rely mainly on the achievements of physiology, and, above all, on the doctrine of combination (conditioned) reflexes. In 1907-1910, Bekhterev published three volumes of the book "Objective Psychology". The scientist argued that all mental processes are accompanied by reflex motor and vegetative reactions that are available for observation and registration.
He was a member of the editorial committee of the multi-volume "Traite international de psychologie pathologique" ("International Treatise on Pathological Psychology") (Paris, 1908-1910), for which he wrote several chapters. In 1908, the Psychoneurological Institute founded by Bekhterev began its work in St. Petersburg.
In May 1918, Bekhterev petitioned the Council of People's Commissars to organize an Institute for the Study of the Brain and Mental Activity. Soon the Institute was opened, and Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev was its director until his death. In 1927 he was awarded the title of Honored Scientist of the RSFSR.
He died suddenly on December 24, 1927 in Moscow, a few hours after he had poisoned himself with ice cream at the Bolshoi Theater1.
After his death, V. M. Bekhterev left his own school and hundreds of students, including 70 professors.
Scientific contribution
Bekhterev investigated a large number of neurological, physiological, morphological and psychological problems. In his approach, he always focused on a comprehensive study of the problems of the brain and man. Carrying out the reformation modern psychology, developed his own teaching, which he consistently designated as objective psychology (from 1904), then as psychoreflexology (from 1910) and as reflexology (from 1917). He paid special attention to the development of reflexology as a complex science of man and society (different from physiology and psychology), designed to replace psychology.
Widely used the concept of "nervous reflex". Introduced the concept of "associative-motor reflex" and developed the concept of this reflex. He discovered and studied the pathways of the human spinal cord and brain, described some brain formations. Established and identified a number of reflexes, syndromes and symptoms. Physiological Bekhterev's reflexes (scapular-shoulder reflex, large spindle reflex, expiratory, etc.) make it possible to determine the state of the corresponding reflex arcs, and pathological reflexes (Mendel-Bekhterev's dorsal foot reflex, carpal-finger reflex, Bekhterev's reflex - Jacobson) reflect the defeat of the pyramidal pathways.
He described some diseases and developed methods for their treatment (“Postencephalitic symptoms of Bechterev”, “Psychotherapeutic triad of Bechterev”, “Phobic symptoms of Bechterev”, etc.). In 1892, Bekhterev described "stiffness of the spine with its curvature as a special form of the disease" ("Bekhterev's disease", "Ankylosing spondylitis"). Bekhterev singled out such diseases as "chorea epilepsy", "syphilitic multiple sclerosis", "acute cerebellar ataxia of alcoholics".
Created a number of drugs. "Ankylosing spondylitis" was widely used as a sedative. For many years he studied the problems of hypnosis and suggestion, including alcoholism. For more than 20 years he studied the issues of sexual behavior and child rearing. Developed objective methods for studying the neuropsychic development of children. He repeatedly criticized psychoanalysis (the teachings of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, etc.), but at the same time contributed to the theoretical, experimental and psychotherapeutic work on psychoanalysis, which was carried out at the Institute for the Study of the Brain and Mental Activity headed by him.
In addition, Bekhterev developed and studied the relationship between nervous and mental illnesses, and circular psychosis, the clinic and pathogenesis of hallucinations, described a number of forms of obsessive-compulsive disorders, various manifestations of mental automatism. For the treatment of neuropsychiatric diseases, he introduced combination-reflex therapy and alcoholism, psychotherapy by the method of distraction, and collective psychotherapy.
Creation
In addition to the dissertation "Experience in the clinical study of body temperature in certain forms of mental illness" (St. Petersburg, 1881), Bekhterev owns numerous works on the normal anatomy of the nervous system; pathological anatomy central nervous system; physiology of the central nervous system; in the clinic of mental and nervous diseases and, finally, in psychology (The formation of our ideas about space, Bulletin of Psychiatry, 1884).
In these works, Bekhterev was engaged in the study and study of the course of individual bundles in the central nervous system, the composition of white matter spinal cord and the course of the fibers in the gray matter and, at the same time, on the basis of the experiments performed, the elucidation of the physiological significance of individual parts of the central nervous system (the visual tubercles, the vestibular branch of the auditory nerve, the inferior and superior olives, the quadrigemina, etc.).
Bekhterev also managed to obtain some new data on the localization of various centers in the cerebral cortex (for example, on the localization of skin - tactile and pain - sensations and muscle consciousness on the surface of the cerebral hemispheres, Vrach, 1883) and also on the physiology of the motor centers of the cerebral cortex ("Doctor", 1886). Many works of Bekhterev are devoted to the description of little-studied pathological processes of the nervous system and individual cases of nervous diseases.
Works: Fundamentals of the doctrine of the functions of the brain, St. Petersburg, 1903-07; Objective psychology, St. Petersburg, 1907-10; Psyche and life, 2nd ed., St. Petersburg, 1904; General diagnostics of diseases of the nervous system, parts 1-2, St. Petersburg, 1911-15; Collective reflexology, P., 1921: General foundations of human reflexology, M.-P., 1923; Conducting pathways of the spinal cord and brain, M.-L., 1926; Brain and activity, M.-L., 1928: Selected. Prod., M., 1954.
Links
- The role of suggestion in public life - speech by V. M. Bekhterev on December 18, 1897
- Biographical materials about V. M. Bekhterev from the Khronos project
1 Regarding the unexpected death of V.M. Bekhterev, there are three versions. Among the closest students of V.M. Bekhterev, there was never, of course, not published, his own version of the teacher’s death: death at the moment of intimacy with one of the young employees, the so-called “sweet death” in the terminology of French authors. According to another version, the death of Bekhterev is connected with the fact that it was he who diagnosed the death of V.I. Lenin: "syphilis of the brain". The most plausible, however, should be considered the version according to which Bekhterev was poisoned on the orders of I.V. Stalin after Bekhterev, after Stalin's consultation about his dry hand, spoke of him as "an ordinary paranoid."
(1857-1927) Russian psychiatrist and neuropathologist
Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev was born in the small Udmurt village of Sorali, Yelabuga district, Vyatka province. His father, Mikhail Bekhterev, was a bailiff, his mother, Nadezhda Lvovna, came from a merchant family.
Vladimir was the third and most youngest child in family. The first years of his life were spent in constant travel. Father was promoted to Glazov, where the family settled in their own house. Soon, the elder Bekhterev received a new promotion and became the head of the department for the supervision of political exiles. With one of them, the Polish journalist K. Tkhyzhevsky, Vladimir studied foreign languages, preparing to enter the gymnasium. In 1864, he and his mother arrived in Vyatka, where he successfully passed the exams and was immediately admitted to the second grade of the gymnasium. But success was overshadowed by the unexpected conclusion of doctors who discovered consumption in his father. Bekhterev had to move again, this time to Vyatka, where his father bought a house, and the family began to settle in a new place. Soon Vladimir's father died, but his mother managed to ensure that her children were taught at the gymnasium "at public expense."
Vladimir becomes one of the best students at the gymnasium, he passes the training program ahead of schedule and receives a matriculation certificate when he was not yet 17 years old. In the summer of 1872 he came to St. Petersburg and became a student at the Medical and Surgical Academy. According to the results entrance exams he got the right to free education with the only condition: after completing his studies, he had to become a military doctor.
My future profession Vladimir Bekhterev chose by chance. In his second year, he had a nervous breakdown from overload, and he ended up in an academic clinic, which was led by one of the largest Russian psychiatrists, Ivan Mikhailovich Balinsky. After recovering, Bekhterev begins attending Balinsky's student seminar.
Together with Vladimir Bekhterev, the future physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov studied at the Academy. After graduation educational institution their friendship was not interrupted until the death of Bekhterev, although the relationship between them was more like a rivalry.
In 1877, the Russian-Turkish war began, and, despite the fact that senior students were not subject to conscription, Bekhterev obtained permission to go to the front. He worked as a doctor as part of a medical detachment organized at the expense of the entrepreneurs of the Ryzhov brothers, and participated in all major battles. The day after the capture of Plevna, Vladimir Bekhterev fell ill with malaria, and after staying in the evacuation hospital he was sent for treatment to St. Petersburg.
After leaving the hospital, Vladimir Bekhterev found out that, as a participant in hostilities, he could continue his education free of charge and without a reduction in the term. However, he did not use the privilege he received and passed all the exams ahead of schedule, along with fellow students who did not interrupt their studies. In 1878 Bekhterev brilliantly defended thesis dedicated to the treatment of rare forms of tuberculosis. The Academic Council recommended it for publication and awarded the author a nominal prize.
Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev could not use the right to defend his doctoral dissertation without first passing the exams, since he had to continue his military service. Taking into account the scientific merits of the young doctor, the leadership of the Academy was able to agree on the continuation of his service as a trainee in the academic clinic for mental and nervous diseases. Bekhterev became one of Balinsky's students. In parallel with his work in the clinic, he taught at the Academy.
In 1878 he married his compatriot N. Bazilevskaya. Soon, the spouses have a son, Eugene, and after him, a daughter, Olga. A week after her birth, Vladimir Bekhterev brilliantly defended his dissertation and received the degree of Doctor of Medicine and the title of Privatdozent. His dissertation was devoted to establishing links between mental disorders and clinical symptoms. He formed signs by which it was possible to establish the presence of a particular mental illness.
In addition to the award of a doctoral degree, Bekhterev was granted the right to make a business trip abroad. He went to Germany, where he wanted to do an internship with the leading German neurologists Westphal and Mendel. Arriving in Berlin, Vladimir Bekhterev learned that the German government limited the length of stay of foreigners in the capital to six weeks. Then he moved to Leipzig, where he began working in the clinic of P. Flexig. Under the guidance of a scientist, Bekhterev for the first time turned to the study of the physiology of nervous processes. He published several articles in German journals, where he laid the foundations new science called neurophysiology.
Flexig highly appreciated the work of the Russian scientist and suggested that Bekhterev continue his internship in Paris, with the famous scientist Jean Martin Charcot. However, having arrived in Paris, Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev received a letter from the Minister of Education A. Delyanov, who offered the scientist to take the position of professor and head of the department of mental illness at Kazan University. By that time, he was among the largest scientists in Europe.
Vladimir Bekhterev agrees and after spending only a few weeks in Paris in the summer of 1885, he returns to Russia. In Kazan, he becomes the head of one of the largest psycho-neurological centers in the country, thanks to the funds allocated by the authorities, he opens a laboratory and a clinic. Gradually, Bekhterev creates a neurophysiological laboratory equipped with the latest technology, in which unique methods of treating mental illnesses are being developed.
The talented scientist studies the structure of the brain, and summarizes his observations in the book Pathways of the Brain (1892), which was immediately translated into the main European languages. On his initiative, a department of neuropathology was established in Kazan, headed by a student of Bekhterev, Professor L. Darkshevich.
However, the family life of a scientist is not as successful as a scientific career. Soon after moving to Kazan, his eldest son dies of tuberculosis. But after a while, a son and a daughter are born to him.
In 1893, Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev received an invitation from the head of the St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy to head the Department of Mental and Nervous Diseases. Having moved to St. Petersburg, the scientist focuses on studying the physiology of the brain. In the clinic he runs, he organizes the first neurosurgical department in the country. A team of promising young researchers gathers around the scientist, a unique scientific community is emerging in which surgeons work side by side with psychiatrists. For the first time in the world, Bekhterev demonstrates cases of surgical treatment of mental illness. In addition, he organizes a number of specialized laboratories at the clinic, in which research is carried out in the anatomy and physiology of the brain, in experimental psychology. At the initiative of the scientist, special medical workshops are organized in which patients work. He proved that work can be the most important tool for the treatment of mental disorders.
In 1895, the scientist published the second edition of the book "Brain Pathways", for which he was nominated for the K. Baer Prize, the highest award in the natural sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Bekhterev addresses the Academy with a letter in which he agrees to accept the prize only if it is shared with I. Pavlov, whose work was also nominated. The Presidium of the Academy decides to combine the first and second prizes and award the scientists a special award in the amount of 700 rubles.
In parallel with the recognition in Russia, the international fame of Bekhterev is also growing. He becomes a member of a number of major scientific societies and European academies of sciences. On May 15, 1899, he was awarded the title of Academician of the Military Medical Academy.
AT late XIX in. the clinic led by the scientist becomes the largest center both in Russia and in Europe for the training of neuropathologists and psychiatrists. It employs interns from different countries the world and from all parts of the country. The clinic publishes several scientific journals and annual scientific reports.
Vladimir Bekhterev's ability to work was truly amazing. He published about twenty scientific papers annually, taught, made daily rounds, and had a weekly outpatient appointment. Under his leadership, unique methods for diagnosing brain diseases were developed. It is curious that back in 1907, the doctor G. Vikhrev, who worked in the Bekhterev clinic, built the world's first roentgenoscope - a device that made it possible to obtain stereoscopic x-ray images. Bekhterev appreciated the discovery and predicted a great future for him, but at that time the level of development of science did not allow creating a full-fledged apparatus. Only many years later it will be built in the USA and named a tomograph.
Since the beginning Russo-Japanese War, Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev directs his students to Far East for neurosurgical care of the wounded.
In 1905, the head of the Military Medical Academy suddenly dies, and the Academic Council unanimously votes for the appointment of Bekhterev to this post. Already in the first months of stay on new position he decides to reinstate at the Academy all the students previously expelled for participating in revolutionary actions. Fearing unrest, the authorities did not dare to cancel Bekhterev's order, but in January 1906 the Minister of War nevertheless removed him from his post, motivating his decision by the fact that administrative activities distract the scientist from scientific research.
Bekhterev goes headlong into scientific work, releasing his fundamental work "Fundamentals of the Doctrine of the Functions of the Brain". In this work, he establishes the correspondence of the system of conditioned reflexes with the work of various parts of the brain, develops a method for complex diagnostics of the brain, with the help of which doctors of subsequent generations successfully treated patients. The work was nominated for the Baer Prize, but Bekhterev did not receive it because of the negative feedback from I. Pavlov, who did not accept the concept of his colleague, considering it too revolutionary.
Free time Vladimir Bekhterev usually spent at the dacha in the town of Kuokkala. There he met the famous Russian artist Ilya Repin, who painted a portrait of the scientist.
After the end of the war with Japan, Bekhterev was able to achieve the implementation of his long-standing plan - to organize a Psychoneurological Institute. Over time, it became both an educational and research institution. Bekhterev gathered a team of leading Russian scientists. Physiologist Nikolai Vvedensky, historian Yevgeny Tarle, chemist D. Tsvet, biologists G. Wagner and M. Kovalevsky gave lectures at the institute.
When in 1911 some teachers left state universities in protest against the policy of the then Minister of Education Lev Kasso, many of them began to work for Bekhterev. The authorities did not like this development of events, and at the first opportunity that presented itself in 1913, when Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev turned 56 years old, he was asked to submit a resignation letter with military service, which meant leaving the Academy. At the same time, he was forced to stop working at the Women's Medical Institute, they tried to fire him from the Psycho-Neurological Institute, but Kasso's order caused a unanimous protest of the entire team, and the authorities did not insist on the implementation of the decision.
Bekhterev remained at the head of the institute until 1918, when, by decision of the Soviet government, the institution was renamed the Institute of the Brain.
After leaving the academy, the scientist published a two-volume work "General Diagnosis of Diseases of the Nervous System", where he summarized his vast experience. For many years, this work has been a reference book for neurologists and psychiatrists.
After the Bolsheviks came to power, Vladimir Bekhterev worked on the scientific councils of the People's Commissariat of Education and the People's Commissariat for Health. At the Bekhterev Institute, courses were opened to train military paramedics for the Red Army.
The scientist kept typing scientific works. In 1918 he published the book General Foundations of Reflexology, in which he applied Pavlov's observations to man. Soon Bekhterev became president of the Psychoneurological Academy.
In the spring of 1923, he goes on a business trip abroad, and on the way he stops in Moscow, where he advises Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who shortly before had a massive stroke that caused loss of speech and paralysis.
In 1925, the 40th anniversary of Bekhterev's scientific work was celebrated in Moscow and Leningrad. Shortly after the anniversary, he loses his wife - she dies of pneumonia. To support him, the older brother Nikolai moves to Bekhterev. Trying to re-arrange his family life, the famous scientist marries one of his employees.
In December 1927, he arrived in Moscow, where a congress of neuropathologists and psychiatrists was opening. On the morning of December 24, the scientist was unexpectedly summoned to the Kremlin for a consultation. Only many years later it became known that on that day he examined Joseph Stalin and gave him a ruthless but correct diagnosis - paranoid schizophrenia. In the evening, Vladimir Bekhterev came to a banquet on the occasion of the opening of the congress, and the next day he suddenly died of acute intestinal poisoning. Although the doctors insisted on an autopsy, the body of the scientist was urgently cremated and sent to Leningrad. The urn with the ashes was installed in the institute's museum created back in 1925. Only many years later she was buried at the Volkovo cemetery.
The work of Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev was continued by his descendants. The daughter of his son Peter, Natalya Petrovna Bekhtereva, became a neuropathologist and was elected a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences for the development of new methods of treatment.
2007 marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of V.M. Bekhterev - scientist-encyclopedist: neuropathologist, psychiatrist, morphologist, physiologist, psychologist, founder of the national school of psychoneurologists.
Bekhterev Vladimir Mikhailovich was born on January 20 (February 1, old style), 1857, in the village of Sarali, Yelabuga district, Vyatka province - now the village of Bekhterevo in the Republic of Tatarstan.
Bekhterev's father, Mikhail Pavlovich, was a bailiff; mother, Maria Mikhailovna, daughter of a titular adviser, was educated in a boarding school, where they taught both music and French. In addition to Vladimir, the family had two more sons: Nikolai and Alexander, 6 and 3 years older than him. In 1864 the family moved to Vyatka, and a year later the head of the family died of consumption. The financial situation of the family was very difficult, nevertheless, the brothers received a higher education.
In 1873, at the age of 16.5, V.M. Bekhterev entered the Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg. Shortly after admission, he suffered a mental disorder - "severe neurasthenia" (diagnosed by V.M. Bekhterev himself), possibly caused by the new living conditions of a provincial youth in the capital, but 28 days of treatment at the clinic for mental and nervous diseases of the academy restored his health. Perhaps that is why, as a 4th year student, he chose the specialty "nervous and mental illness", but in his autobiography he himself explained the choice by the fact that it made it possible to be closer to public life. As a last-year student, Bekhterev took part in Russian-Turkish war 1877–1878 as part of the "flying sanitary detachment of the Ryzhov brothers." One of the brothers was a student of the Medico-Surgical Academy. In the detachment of 12 people there were 7 medical students of the Moscow Art Academy. Under the pseudonym "Order", Bekhterev wrote notes to the newspaper "Severny Vestnik". In 1878, Bekhterev passed his final exams ahead of schedule and very successfully and was left for further improvement at the Professor's Institute at the Academy.
On September 9, 1879, Bekhterev married Natalya Petrovna Bazilevskaya, whom he had known since the gymnasium in Vyatka. They had six children: Eugene, who was born in 1880, soon died, Olga was born in 1883, Vladimir in 1887, Peter in 1888, Catherine in 1890, and her beloved daughter Maria in 1904. .
In 1881, Bekhterev defended his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Medicine on the topic: “The experience of a clinical study of body temperature in certain forms of mental illness”, and on November 20 of the same year he received academic title Privatdozent. In 1883, the Italian Society of Psychiatrists elected V.M. Bekhterev as a full member, and the Society of Russian Doctors awarded him a silver medal for the study "On forced and violent movements during the destruction of some parts of the central nervous system."
As a candidate for an internship, V.M. Bekhterev presented 58 works on various issues to the competition committee experimental studies and clinics for nervous and mental illnesses, and on June 1, 1984, by the decision of the Conference of the Academy, he was sent on the first scientific trip abroad to Germany. V.M. Bekhterev attended lectures by Westphal, Mendel, Dubois-Raymond and other well-known German scientists involved in the study of the nervous system. Then, in Leipzig, he worked with the leading neurologist and morphologist of that time, P. Flexig, to whom he soon dedicated his first fundamental monograph, Pathways of the Spinal Cord and Brain. Here he began to study psychology in the laboratory of the famous W. Wund. In December 1884 V.M. Bekhterev received an official invitation from the Minister of Public Education Delyanova to take the chair of psychiatry at Kazan University. He accepted this invitation with certain conditions, one of which was the completion of the full program of the scientific mission. After Leipzig, Bekhterev visited Paris, where he got acquainted with the work of the great J. Charcot, and then Munich (prof. Gudden's clinic) and completed his business trip in the summer of 1885 in Vienna at the clinic of prof. Meinert.
In the autumn of 1885 V.M. Bekhterev began to work at Kazan University. He reorganized the department of psychiatry, at which he soon organized the first psychophysiological laboratory in Russia, where V.M. Bekhterev began to study the morphology of the nervous system. In the Kazan period of V.M. Bekhterev enriched science with discoveries in the field of anatomy and physiology of various structures of the brain and spinal cord. These studies were summarized in the first monograph, Pathways of the Spinal Cord and Brain (1893); three years later, in 1896, the second, thoroughly revised, edition was published, three times larger in volume and supplemented by 302 drawings made from brain preparations. This is a collection of empirical material obtained both by the author himself and by other researchers of great value. The German professor F. Kopsch (1868-1955) claimed that "only two know the anatomy of the brain perfectly - this is God and Bekhterev." In 1892 V.M. Bekhterev was the initiator of the creation of the Kazan Neurological Society, and in 1893 he created the journal Neurological Bulletin, the editor of which was for many subsequent years.
September 26, 1893 V.M. Bekhterev, instead of his teacher I.P. Merzheevsky (1838-1908), headed the Department of Mental and Nervous Diseases of the Military Medical Academy and became the director of the mental illness clinic of the Clinical Military Hospital, on the basis of which the department was located. Here, research continued, begun back in Kazan and culminating in the publication in 1903-1907 of the monograph "Fundamentals of the Teaching about the Functions of the Brain", in 7 parts. This work of 2500 pages contains an analysis of the functions of various parts of the nervous system. In 1909, the work was transferred to German. During his service in the Navy (1893–1913), the family of V.M. Bekhtereva occupied a state-owned apartment at the psychiatric clinic of the Military Medical Academy (Botkinskaya st., 9).
In St. Petersburg in 1896 V.M. Bekhterev created the journal Review of Psychiatry, Neurology and Experimental Psychology, and in 1897 a newly built clinic for nervous diseases of the Military Medical Academy (Lesnoy pr., 2) was opened, in which a special operating room was organized for the surgical treatment of certain nervous and mental disorders. diseases.
In 1899 V.M. Bekhterev was elected an academician of the Military Medical Academy and awarded the gold medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences. A year later (in 1900) V.M. Bekhterev was awarded the Baer Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In the same year, he was elected chairman of the Russian Society of Normal and Pathological Psychology and professor at the Women's Medical Institute in the Department of Nervous and Mental Diseases.
During the winter of 1905/1906 V.M. Bekhterev acted as head of the Military Medical Academy. In his autobiography, he wrote about this time: “I was required to lead the academy, as an institution of the military department, “safely” through the storm and onslaught of the revolution. I can say that this was done with honor, but it would be superfluous to give here the details of all the incidents that took place at the academy during this time. The Minister of War invited V.M. Bekhterev to take this post "finally..., retaining the chair and directorship of the clinic for me", but V.M. Bekhterev refused: during these years his scientific interests were directed to the study of psychology - in 1903 he first proposed the creation of a Psychoneurological Institute. These plans were successfully implemented in 1907. In the same year, V.M. Bekhterev received the title of Honored Ordinary Professor.
Over the next four years, filled with efforts to create an institute, V.M. Bekhterev completed the three-volume monograph "Objective Psychology". In 1911, the first own buildings of the Institute appeared in the so-called Tsarsky Gorodok behind the Nevsky Zastava, built by the well-known specialist in the construction of medical institutions, the court architect R. F. Meltzer (1860–1943). In the same 1911, V.M. Bekhterev published a monograph "Hypnosis, suggestion and hypnotherapy and their therapeutic value."
In 1912, the Experimental Clinical Institute for the Study of Alcoholism was opened within the structure of the Psychoneurological Institute. A year later, the international scientific community decided to transform it into an international scientific center. On January 19, 1913, the Council of the Psychoneurological Institute unanimously elected V.M. Bekhterev as President of the Institute for the next five years; On January 24, the relevant documents were sent for approval to the Ministry of Public Education.
In September-October, V.M. Bekhterev took part in the widely discussed “Beilis Case” in Russia: he conducted a second psychiatric examination and proved the innocence of Mendel Beilis (he was charged with the ritual murder of an Orthodox 13-year-old boy Andrei Yushchinsky, and according to the results of the first examination conducted by Professor I.A. Sikorsky, this possibility was not ruled out). After V.M. Bekhterev at the trial M. Beilis was acquitted by a jury. The examination of the Beilis case entered the history of science as the first forensic psychological and psychiatric examination.
Immediately after V.M. Bekhterev on the “Beilis Case”, on October 5, the answer came from the Minister of Public Education L.A. Kasso (1865-1914) to the presentation of the Psycho-Neurological Institute: he did not find it "possible to approve the Academician Privy Councilor Bekhterev for the new five years in the rank of President of the Institute." At the same time, V.M. Bekhterev was fired from the Military Medical Academy and from the Women's Medical Institute.
In 1913, the Bekhterev family settled in their own house, built according to the design of the architect R.F. Meltzer on Kamenny Island. In those days, there were auxiliary buildings on the plot at the mansion: a stable, a garage for a scientist's car, etc. (only the main building has survived). In addition, the family had a dacha "Quiet Coast" on the shores of the Gulf of Finland (the area of the current village of Smolyachkovo), where they spent Sundays, holidays and all summer. Not far from Bekhterev's dacha, thirty versts away, were "Penates" - the estate of the Russian artist I.E. Repin (1844-1930), who was often visited by Bekhterev. According to the memoirs of the daughter of the scientist Maria, they went to Repin along the bay on horseback on loose sands twice a summer and always on Ilyin's day. In the summer of 1913, I.E. Repin painted the famous portrait of V.M. Bekhterev, kept in the Russian Museum, and its author's copy is in the memorial museum of V.M. Bekhterev at the Psychoneurological Institute. The same museum also houses the work of the sculptor E.A. Bloch - a bust of a scientist. While posing V.M. Bekhterev himself fashioned the head of a suffering boy from a piece of clay, and the sculptor Bloch attached this work of the scientist to the bust of Bekhterev he had made. The meaning of the amazing composition can be expressed as follows: the suffering of the patient is the essence of Bekhterev the doctor.
During the First World War, V.M. Bekhterev contributed to the re-equipment of the Psycho-Neurological Institute into a Military Hospital, in which a first-class neurosurgical department functioned, later transformed into the first Neuro-Surgical Institute in Russia. In 1916, the educational units at the Psychoneurological Institute were transformed into the Private Petrograd University.
Revolution of 1917 V.M. Bekhterev accepted and from December 1917 began working in the scientific and medical department of the People's Commissariat for Education. Since 1918, he was already a member of the Academic Council under the People's Commissariat of Education, and in the same year he managed to organize the Institute for the Study of the Brain and Mental Activity (Institute of the Brain), for which the government allocated the building of the palace of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich Jr. (Petrovskaya nab., 2 ). At the Institute, research began in full swing within the framework of a new scientific direction named by V.M. Bekhterev reflexology. In the same year, his monograph "General Foundations of Reflexology" was published.
In 1918, the Private Petrograd University at the Psychoneurological Institute received the official status of the Second Petrograd University. But in 1919 a reorganization took place in Petrograd high school, as a result of which the law and pedagogical faculties were transferred to the First Petrograd University, the medical faculty was transformed into State Institute Medical Knowledge (GIMZ), chemical-pharmaceutical department - to the Chemical-Pharmaceutical Institute, veterinary faculty - to the Veterinary-Zootechnical Institute. Thus, the created system of training at the university at the Psycho-Neurological Institute turned out to be so perfect that, if the need arose, individual faculties and even departments were turned into independent higher educational institutions without much difficulty.
January 1, 1920 V.M. Bekhterev addressed in the press to doctors all over the world with a protest against the food blockade of Russia, which was organized by the Entente countries. This statement in the press was broadcast on the same day and by radio abroad. The speech of the world famous scientist had a certain impact on the public foreign countries, and after a while a message appeared in the newspapers that the blockade was being lifted.
From 1920 until the end of V.M. Bekhterev was a deputy of the Petrograd Soviet, taking an active part in the work of the permanent commission on public education.
In 1921 V.M. Bekhterev achieved the reorganization of the system of research institutions of the Psychoneurological Institute into the Psychoneurological Academy and was elected its President. In the same year, V.M. Bekhterev published the monograph Collective Reflexology. During this period, the scientist paid much attention to the study of the physiology of the labor processes of various professions and to the issues of the scientific organization of labor.
In the memoirs of V.M. Bekhterev and his relatives, his distinguishing feature is noted - an incredible ability to work. In between lectures, he did not rest, but conducted hypnosis sessions in the next room. Constantly wrote something, even on the road. I slept no more than 5–6 hours a day, usually falling asleep at 3 am. After waking up, often without getting up yet, V.M. Bekhterev set to work on the manuscripts. He was modest and undemanding. The external conditions of life for him and his work did not play any role. Three times a week V.M. Bekhterev received patients at home from eight o'clock in the evening and often until late at night (up to 40 patients per evening).
In the summer at the dacha of V.M. Bekhterev slept and worked on a balcony with a huge open window overlooking the bay. There was a small table and a comfortable straw chair, in which he sometimes wrote poetry for relaxation, and over time he accumulated quite a lot of them. Value time, he almost did not go on foot. He ate little, mostly vegetarian and dairy foods. For breakfast, I preferred steep oatmeal jelly with milk. At dinner, he was served separately fresh salad, without seasoning, whole leaves. He did not drink alcohol at all and did not smoke. Systematically swam in the bay until late autumn.
Brilliant abilities, an inquisitive mind, adamant perseverance in achieving the set goal and V.M. Bekhterev were aimed at the consistent resolution of the most difficult problems of medical theory and practice in the study, treatment and prevention of neuropsychiatric diseases.
After the revolution, Bekhterev's wife, Natalya Petrovna, lived at the dacha "Quiet Coast", which turned out to be abroad, in Finland. During the period of post-revolutionary devastation in the life of V.M. Bekhterev, another woman appeared - Berta Yakovlevna Gurzhi (nee Are). B.Ya. Gurzhi, an employee of the office in the Commission for the Improvement of the Life of Scientists (KUBU), provided V.M. Bekhterev his apartment, located in the city center, to receive patients. After the death of Natalya Petrovna in 1926, Bekhterev formalized his relationship with Berta Yakovlevna, and she began to bear his last name.
In 1927 V.M. Bekhterev received the title of Honored Scientist. On December 24, 1927, during the work of the I All-Union Congress of Neurologists and Psychiatrists in Moscow, at which V.M. Bekhterev made a report, he died suddenly. The circumstances of the disease - its development during the day, the lack of professionalism of the treatment carried out - as well as the features of the pathoanatomical autopsy (only the brain was removed and examined), the hasty cremation of the body in Moscow and the subsequent oblivion of the scientist for 30 years - all this suggests a violent nature of death. Berta Yakovlevna, who accompanied Bekhterev to Moscow, was present at his death. In 1937 she was repressed and shot a month after her arrest. Urn with the ashes of V.M. Bekhterev, kept for many years in the memorial museum of V.M. Bekhterev, only in 1970 was buried on the Literary bridges. The author of the tombstone is M.K. Anikushin (1917–1997).
“Systematic index of works and speeches of V.M. Bekhterev printed in Russian”, compiled by O.B. Kazanskaya and T.Ya. Khvilivitsky in 1954 contains about a thousand names. These works reflect: the discoveries of V.M. Bekhterev in the morphology and physiology of the nervous system, the description of 19 new forms of diseases in psychoneurology, the invention of many new methods of diagnosis and treatment, etc. It is known that V.M. Bekhterev conducted about a thousand forensic psychiatric examinations. The journal "Bulletin of Knowledge" in 1926 published a list of institutions and journals that arose on the initiative and with the direct participation of Vladimir Mikhailovich: institutions - 33, journals - 10. Subsequently, studies of the scientist's work made it possible to add 17 more institutions and 2 journals to this list. Work on the bibliography of the works of V.M. Ankylosing spondylitis continues, and at present 1350 works published in various journals and individual editions in Russian and about 500 in other languages, mainly in German and French, have been identified. However, the complete collection of works has not yet been published.
In 1957, on the 100th anniversary of the scientist, the street on which the Psychoneurological Institute is located was named Bekhterev Street, in 1960 a monument was erected to him in front of the main building of the institute (sculptor M.K. Anikushin), a memorial plaque was placed on the building: “Founder Academician V. M. Bekhterev of the Psychoneurological Institute worked here from 1908 to 1927. Since 1925, the Psychoneurological Institute bears his name.
BEKHTEREV Vladimir Mikhailovich(1857-1927) - Russian physiologist, neuropathologist, psychiatrist, psychologist. He founded the first experimental psychological laboratory in Russia (1885), and then the Psychoneurological Institute (1908), the world's first center for the comprehensive study of man. Based on the reflex concept of mental activity put forward by Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov, he developed a natural science theory of behavior. Arising in opposition to the traditional introspective psychology of consciousness, the theory of V.M. Bekhterev was originally called objective psychology (1904), then psychoreflexology (1910) and finally reflexology (1917). V.M. Bekhterev made a major contribution to the development of Russian experimental psychology (General Foundations of Human Reflexology, 1917).
Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev, a well-known Russian neurologist, neuropathologist, psychologist, psychiatrist, morphologist and physiologist of the nervous system, was born on January 20, 1857. in the village of Sorali, Yelabuga district, Vyatka province, in the family of a petty civil servant. In August 1867 he began classes at the Vyatka gymnasium, and since Bekhterev decided in his youth to devote his life to neuropathology and psychiatry, after finishing seven classes of the gymnasium in 1873. he entered the Medico-Surgical Academy.
In 1878 graduated from the Medico-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg, was left for further education at the Department of Psychiatry under I. P. Merzheevsky. In 1879 Bekhterev was accepted as a full member of the St. Petersburg Society of Psychiatrists.
April 4, 1881 Bekhterev successfully defended his doctoral dissertation in medicine on the topic "The experience of clinical investigation of body temperature in certain forms of mental illness" and received the academic title of Privatdozent. In 1884 Bekhterev went on a business trip abroad, where he studied with such well-known European psychologists as Dubois-Reymond, Wundt, Flexig and Charcot.
After returning from a business trip, Bekhterev begins to give a course of lectures on the diagnosis of nervous diseases to fifth-year students of Kazan University. Being since 1884. professor at the Kazan University at the Department of Mental Diseases, Bekhterev provided the teaching of this subject with the establishment of a clinical department in the Kazan district hospital and a psychophysiological laboratory at the university; founded the Society of Neurologists and Psychiatrists, founded the journal "Neurological Bulletin" and published a number of his works, as well as those of his students in various departments of neuropathology and anatomy of the nervous system.
In 1883 Bekhterev was awarded the silver medal of the Society of Russian Doctors for the article "On forced and violent movements during the destruction of some parts of the central nervous system." In this article, Bekhterev drew attention to the fact that nervous diseases can often be accompanied by mental disorders, and with mental illness, signs of organic damage to the central nervous system are also possible. In the same year he was elected a member of the Italian Society of Psychiatrists.
His most famous article "Stiffness of the spine with its curvature as a special form of the disease" was published in the capital's journal "Doctor" in 1892. Bekhterev described "stiffness of the spine with its curvature as a special form of the disease" (now better known as Bekhterev's disease, ankylosing spondylitis, rheumatoid spondylitis), that is, a systemic inflammatory disease of the connective tissue with damage to the articular-ligamentous apparatus of the spine, as well as peripheral joints, sacroiliac articulation, hip and shoulder joints and involvement in the process of internal organs. Bekhterev also singled out such diseases as choreic epilepsy, syphilitic multiple sclerosis, acute cerebellar ataxia of alcoholics. These, as well as other neurological symptoms first identified by the scientist and a number of original clinical observations, are reflected in the two-volume book "Nervous Diseases in Individual Observations", published in Kazan.
Since 1893 The Kazan Neurological Society began to regularly publish its own printed organ - the journal Neurological Bulletin, which was published until 1918. edited by Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev. In the spring of 1893 Bekhterev received an invitation from the head of the St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy to take the chair of mental and nervous diseases. Bekhterev arrived in St. Petersburg and began to create the first neurosurgical operating room in Russia.
In the laboratories of the clinic, Bekhterev, together with his staff and students, continued numerous studies on the morphology and physiology of the nervous system. This allowed him to complete the materials on neuromorphology and begin work on the fundamental seven-volume work Fundamentals of the Teaching of Brain Functions.
In 1894 Bekhterev was appointed a member of the medical council of the Ministry of the Interior, and in 1895. he became a member of the Military Medical Scientific Council under the Minister of War and at the same time a member of the council of the mentally ill charity home.
November 1900 The two-volume "Conducting Pathways of the Spinal Cord and Brain" was nominated by the Russian Academy of Sciences for the Academician K. M. Baer Prize. In 1902 He published the book Mind and Life. By that time, Bekhterev had prepared for publication the first volume of Fundamentals of the Doctrine of the Functions of the Brain, which became his main work on neurophysiology. Here are collected and systematized general provisions about brain activity. So, Bekhterev presented the energy theory of inhibition, according to which the nerve energy in the brain rushes to the center that is in an active state. According to Bekhterev, this energy, as it were, flows to him along the pathways connecting individual areas of the brain, primarily from nearby areas of the brain, in which, as Bekhterev believed, “a decrease in excitability, therefore, depression” occurs.
In general, Bekhterev's work on the study of brain morphology made an invaluable contribution to the development of domestic psychology. He, in particular, was interested in the course of individual bundles in the central nervous system, the composition of the white matter of the spinal cord and the course of fibers in the gray matter, and at the same time, on the basis of his experiments, he succeeded in elucidating the physiological significance of individual parts of the central nervous system (the visual tubercles, the vestibular branch of the auditory nerve, the inferior and superior olives, and the quadrigemina).
Dealing directly with the functions of the brain, Bekhterev discovered the nuclei and pathways in the brain; created the doctrine of the pathways of the spinal cord and the functional anatomy of the brain; established the anatomical and physiological basis of balance and spatial orientation, discovered in the cerebral cortex centers of movement and secretion of internal organs, etc.
After completing work on the seven volumes of Fundamentals of the Doctrine of the Functions of the Brain, Bekhterev's special attention began to be attracted to the problems of psychology. Bekhterev spoke about the equal existence of two psychologies: he singled out subjective psychology, the main method of which should be introspection, and objective psychology. Bekhterev called himself a representative of objective psychology, but he considered it possible to study objectively only the externally observable, i.e. behavior (in the behaviorist sense), and the physiological activity of the nervous system.
Proceeding from the fact that mental activity arises as a result of the work of the brain, he considered it possible to rely mainly on the achievements of physiology, and above all on the doctrine of conditioned reflexes. Thus, Bekhterev creates a whole doctrine, which he called reflexology, which actually continued the work of objective psychology of Bekhterev.
In 1907-1910 Bekhterev published three volumes of the book "Objective Psychology". The scientist argued that all mental processes are accompanied by reflex motor and vegetative reactions that are available for observation and registration.
To describe the complex forms of reflex activity, Bekhterev proposed the term "associative-motor reflex" He also described a number of physiological and pathological reflexes, symptoms and syndromes. Physiological reflexes discovered by Bekhterev (shoulder-shoulder reflex, large spindle reflex, expiratory, etc.) make it possible to determine the state of the corresponding reflex arcs, and pathological reflexes (Mendel-Bekhterev's dorsal reflex, carpal-finger reflex, Bekhterev-Jacobson reflex) reflect the defeat of the pyramidal pathways. Ankylosing spondylitis symptoms are observed in various pathological conditions: dorsal tabes, sciatic neuralgia, massive cerebral strokes, angiotrophoneurosis, pathological processes in the membranes of the base of the brain, etc.
To assess the symptoms, Bekhterev created special devices (an algesimeter that allows you to accurately measure pain sensitivity; a baresthesiometer that measures pressure sensitivity; a myoesthesiometer - a device for measuring sensitivity, etc.).
Bekhterev also developed objective methods for studying the neuropsychic development of children, the relationship between nervous and mental illnesses, psychopathy and circular psychosis, the clinic and pathogenesis of hallucinations, described a number of forms of obsessive states, various manifestations of mental automatism. For the treatment of neuropsychic diseases, he introduced an associative reflex therapy of neuroses and alcoholism, psychotherapy by the method of distraction, collective psychotherapy As a sedative, Bekhterev's mixture was widely used.
In 1908 Bekhterev created the Psychoneurological Institute in St. Petersburg and became its director. After the revolution in 1918 Bekhterev applied to the Council of People's Commissars with a request to organize an Institute for the Study of the Brain and Mental Activity. When the institute was created, Bekhterev took the position of its director and remained so until his death. The Institute for the Study of the Brain and Mental Activity was subsequently named the State Reflexology Institute for the Study of the Brain named after. V. M. Bekhtereva.
In 1921 Academician V. M. Bekhterev, together with the well-known animal trainer V. L. Durov, conducted experiments of mental suggestion to trained dogs of pre-conceived actions. Similar experiments were carried out in the practical laboratory of zoopsychology, which was directed by V. L. Durov with the participation of one of the pioneers of mental suggestion in the USSR, engineer B. B. Kazinsky.
Already by the beginning of 1921. in the laboratory of V.L. Durov, over 20 months of research, 1278 experiments of mental suggestion (to dogs) were carried out, including 696 successful and 582 unsuccessful. Experiments with dogs showed that mental suggestion does not have to be carried out by a trainer, it could be an experienced inducer. It was only necessary that he knew and applied the method of transmission established by the trainer. The suggestion was carried out both in direct visual contact with the animal, and at a distance, when the dogs did not see or hear the trainer, and he did not hear them. It should be emphasized that the experiments were carried out with dogs that had certain changes in the psyche that arose after special training.
In 1927, Bekhterev was awarded the title of Honored Scientist of the RSFSR. The great scientist died on December 24, 1927.
A great Russian scientist, he was nominated several times for Nobel Prize, devoted his life to revealing the secrets of the human brain, treated people with hypnosis, studied telepathy and the psychology of the crowd.
Mysticism and materialism
The experiments of Vladimir Bekhterev with hypnosis were ambiguously perceived by contemporaries, especially by the scientific community. At the end of the 19th century, the attitude towards hypnosis was skeptical: it was considered almost charlatanism and mysticism. Bekhterev proved that this mysticism can be used in an exclusively applied way. Vladimir Mikhailovich sent carts through the streets of the city, collecting drunkards of the capital and delivering them to the scientist, and then conducted sessions of mass treatment of alcoholism with the help of hypnosis. Only then, due to the incredible results of treatment, hypnosis is recognized as an official method of treatment.
brain map
Bekhterev approached the issue of studying the brain with the enthusiasm inherent in the discoverers of the era of the Great Geographical Discoveries. In those days, the brain was the real Terra Incognita. Based on a series of experiments, Bekhterev created a method that allows you to thoroughly study the paths of nerve fibers and cells. Thousands of the thinnest layers of the frozen brain were alternately attached under the glass of a microscope, and detailed sketches were made from them, which were used to create a “brain atlas”. One of the creators of such atlases, the German professor Kopsch, said: "Only two people know the structure of the brain perfectly - God and Bekhterev."
Parapsychology
In 1918, Bekhterev established an institute for the study of the brain. Under him, the scientist creates a laboratory for parapsychology, the main task of which was to study the reading of thought at a distance. Bekhterev was absolutely convinced of the materiality of thought and practical telepathy. To solve the problems of the world revolution, a group of scientists not only thoroughly studies neurobiological reactions, but also tries to read the language of Shambhala, plans a trip to the Himalayas as part of the Roerich expedition.
Analysis of the problem of communication
Questions of communication, the mutual psychological influence of people on each other occupy one of the central places in the socio-psychological theory and collective experiment of V. M. Bekhterev. Bekhterev considered the social role and functions of communication on the example of specific types of communication: imitation and suggestion. “If there were no imitation,” he wrote, “there could not be a person as a social individual, but meanwhile imitation draws its main material from communication with itself.
similar, between which, thanks to cooperation, a kind of mutual induction and mutual suggestion develops. Bekhterev was one of the first scientists to seriously study the psychology of the collective person and the psychology of the crowd.
Child psychology
The tireless scientist involved even his children in the experiments. It is thanks to his curiosity that modern scientists have knowledge of the psychology inherent in the infantile period of human maturation. In his article "The Initial Evolution of Children's Drawings in an Objective Study", Bekhterev analyzes the drawings of the "girl M", who is in fact his fifth child, his beloved daughter Masha. However, interest in the drawings soon faded away, leaving the door ajar to the untapped field of information that was now provided to followers. The new and the unknown has always distracted the scientist from what has already been started and partially mastered. Bekhterev opened the doors.
Experiments with animals
V. M. Bekhterev with the help of trainer V.L. Durova conducted about 1278 experiments of mental suggestion of information to dogs. Of these, 696 were considered successful, and then, according to the experimenters, solely because of incorrectly composed tasks. The processing of the material showed that "the dog's responses were not a matter of chance, but depended on the influence of the experimenter on it." Here is how V.M. Bekhterev's third experiment was when a dog named Pikki had to jump onto a round chair and hit the right side of the piano keyboard with its paw. “And here is the dog Pikki in front of Durov. He looks intently into her eyes, for some time covers her muzzle with his palms. A few seconds pass, during which Pikki remains motionless, but being released, he rushes swiftly to the piano, jumps up on a round chair, and from a paw strike on the right side of the keyboard, several treble notes are heard.
Unconscious telepathy
Bekhterev argued that the transmission and reading of information through the brain, this amazing ability, called telepathy, can be realized without the knowledge of the inspirer and transmitter. Numerous experiments on the transmission of thought at a distance were perceived in two ways. It was as a result of recent experiments that Bekhterev continued his further work "under the gunpoint of the NKVD." The possibilities of suggesting information to a person, which aroused the interest of Vladimir Mikhailovich, were much more serious than similar experiments with animals and, according to contemporaries, were interpreted by many as an attempt to create psychotronic weapons of mass destruction.
By the way...
Academician Bekhterev once noted that only 20% of people will be given the great happiness of dying, preserving their mind on the roads of life. The rest, by old age, will turn into evil or naive senile people and become ballast on the shoulders of their own grandchildren and adult children. 80% is much more than the number of those who are destined to get cancer, Parkinson's disease or die in old age from brittle bones. To enter the happy 20% in the future, it is important to start now.
Over the years, almost everyone begins to be lazy. We work hard in our youth so that we can rest in our old age. However, the more we calm down and relax, the more harm we do to ourselves. The level of requests is reduced to a banal set: "good food - plenty of sleep." Intellectual work is limited to solving crossword puzzles. The level of demands and claims to life and to others is increasing, the burden of the past is crushing. Irritation from misunderstanding of something results in a rejection of reality. Memory and thinking skills suffer. Gradually, a person moves away from the real world, creating his own, often cruel and hostile, painful fantasy world.
Dementia never comes suddenly. It progresses over the years, acquiring more and more power over a person. What is now just a prerequisite, in the future may become fertile ground for the germs of dementia. Most of all, it threatens those who have lived their lives without changing their attitudes. Such traits as excessive adherence to principles, perseverance and conservatism are more likely to lead to dementia in old age than flexibility, the ability to quickly change decisions, and emotionality. “The main thing, guys, is not to grow old with your heart!”
Here are some indirect signs that indicate that it is worth doing a brain upgrade.
1. You have become painfully sensitive to criticism, while you yourself criticize others too often.
2. You do not want to learn new things. Rather agree to repair an old mobile phone than understand the instructions for a new model.
3. You often say: “But before”, that is, you remember and are nostalgic for the old days.
4. You are ready to talk about something with rapture, despite the boredom in the eyes of the interlocutor. It doesn't matter that he will fall asleep now, the main thing is that what you are talking about is interesting to you.
5. You find it difficult to concentrate when you start reading serious or non-fiction. Poor understanding and memory of what you read. You can read half of a book today and forget the beginning tomorrow.
6. You began to talk about issues in which you were never versed. For example, about politics, economics, poetry or figure skating. Moreover, it seems to you that you have such a good command of the issue that you could start leading the state right tomorrow, become a professional literary critic or a sports judge.
7. Of the two films - the work of a cult director and a popular film novel / detective - you choose the second. Why stress again? You don’t understand at all what interesting someone finds in these cult directors.
8. You believe that others should adapt to you, and not vice versa.
9. Much in your life is accompanied by rituals. For example, you cannot drink your morning coffee from any mug other than your favorite without first feeding the cat and flipping through the morning paper. The loss of even one element would unsettle you for the whole day.
10. At times you notice that you tyrannize those around you with some of your actions, and you do it without malicious intent, but simply because you think that this is the right thing to do.
Brain development tips
Note that the brightest people, who retain their minds until old age, as a rule, are people of science and art. On duty, they have to strain their memory and do daily mental work. They always keep their finger on the pulse modern life, tracking fashion trends and even somewhat ahead of them. This "production necessity" is the guarantee of a happy and reasonable longevity.
1. Start learning something every two or three years. You do not have to go to college and get a third or even fourth education. You can take a short-term refresher course or learn a completely new profession. You can start eating those foods that you have not eaten before, learn new tastes.
2. Surround yourself with young people. From them you can always pick up all sorts of useful things that will help you always stay up-to-date. Play with children, they can teach you a lot that you don't even know about.
3. If you haven't learned anything new for a long time, maybe you just haven't been looking? Look around you, how many new and interesting things are happening where you live.
4. From time to time solve intellectual problems and take all kinds of subject tests.
5. Teach foreign languages even if you don't speak to them. The need to regularly memorize new words will help train your memory.
6. Grow not only up, but also deep! Get out old textbooks and periodically recall the school and university curriculum.
7. Go in for sports! Regular physical activity before gray hair and after - really saves from dementia.
8. Train your memory more often by forcing yourself to remember poems that you once knew by heart, dance steps, programs that you learned at the institute, phone numbers of old friends and much more - everything you can remember.
9. Break up habits and rituals. The more the next day will be different from the previous one, the less likely you are to "smoky" and come to dementia. Drive to work on different streets, give up the habit of ordering the same dishes, do something that you have never been able to do before.
10. Give more freedom to others and do as much as possible yourself. The more spontaneity, the more creativity. The more creativity, the longer you keep your mind and intellect!
