Sapolovych, Yakiv

Sapolovych, Yakiv [Саполович, Яків; Sapolovyč, Jakiv], b 1760 in Sribne, Chernihiv regiment, d 26 August 1830 in Saint Petersburg. Surgeon. A graduate of the Kyivan Mohyla Academy (1772–8) and of hospital schools in Kronstadt and Saint Petersburg (1778–83), he invented new versions of surgical instruments for army doctors. He was the first to use percussion in the Russian Empire. He was a professor of surgery at the Saint Petersburg Medico-Surgical School (from 1790), a member of the Medical College (1795–1804), and director of the Saint Petersburg Medical Instruments Plant (1796–1829). He died fighting a cholera epidemic.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]