Peremezhko, Petro

Peremezhko, Petro [Перемежко, Петро; Peremežko], b 24 July 1833 in Rybotyn, Krolevets county, Chernihiv gubernia, d 8 January 1894 in Kyiv. Histologist. A graduate of Kyiv University (1859), he worked in Kazan, was a professor of histology, embryology, and comparative anatomy at Kyiv University (1868–91), and served as dean of the medical faculty (1872–5) and president of the Kyiv Medical Society (1882–3). He set up the first histology department in Ukraine and discovered the process of karyokinesis in animal cells (1878), thereby becoming one of the founders of karyology. He first described the nerves which later came to be called proprioceptors. His publications also dealt with the development and regeneration of striated muscles, the structure of the hypophysis, gerontological changes in the thyroid gland, and the development and structure of the spleen. He built the first microtome in the Russian Empire and contributed to the first Russian textbook in microscopic anatomy.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]