Shumliansky, Oleksander

Shumliansky, Oleksander [Шумлянський, Олександер; Šumljans'kyj], b 1748 in Mali Budyshcha, near Poltava, d 6 July 1795 in Moscow. Physician; brother of Pavlo Shumliansky. After being educated at the Kyivan Mohyla Academy (1758–71) and the medical school at the Saint Petersburg Military Hospital (1773–6), he wrote a doctoral dissertation at Strasbourg University on the structure of the kidney (1782), in which he gave the first scientific description of Bowman’s capsule (Shumliansky’s capsula and loop). From 1786 he served as a professor of internal medicine and obstetrics in Moscow’s medical schools. The founder of histology in the Russian Empire, he translated medical books into Russian and wrote Mnenie odnogo istinoliubtsa o popravlenii naipolezneishei dlia liudei nauki (The Opinion of a Lover of Truth on the Improvement of the Science Most Useful to Man, 1787).

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