Ya.V. Willie: the life path of a patriot and a doctor

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In 1812, during the Patriotic War, according to the "Russian Medical List" there were 2,677 doctors in the Russian Empire. A significant part of these specialists were in military service: up to 850 senior medical doctors of the 1st and 2nd classes were employed in the states of divisions, regiments, squadrons and batteries, in addition, about 1000-1200 paramedics of the 1st and 2nd classes. Despite the fact that the Russian army was inferior to the French in terms of numbers, however, Russian paramedics were superior to many French surgeons in their training.
One of the outstanding doctors of that time was the well-known organizer of health care and education, military surgeon J.V. Willie.
Willie (Wiley) Jacob (James) Vasilievich was born on November 13, 1768 in Scotland, in the village of Kincairdine-on-Fort (in the town of Dundee). The family was poor, in addition to Jacob, his father had 2 more sons - William, who inherited his father's cross, who became a sailor, and Robert Walter, a shipowner on the Edinburgh – Petersburg trade line. On the instructions of his mother, in 1786, Yakov entered the medical faculty at the University of Edinburgh, where he studied from 1786 to 1790, then in 1794 he received a Doctor of medicine degree in absentia from the University of Aberdeen. As a student, he discovered a great interest in surgery and anatomy. After graduating from university in 1790, at the invitation of the Russian government, Willie was sent to Russia, where, after successfully passing the exam, he was appointed a doctor in the 33rd Yelets Infantry Regiment as a senior doctor, it was then that he published his first scientific work "The use of arsenic in intermittent fever" and changed his name, becoming Yakov Vasilyevich, instead of James.
In 1794, Yakov Vasilyevich performed a complicated operation at that time - he extracted a bullet lodged in the lumbar vertebra of A.V. Suvorov's adjutant. The Scottish doctor was extremely outraged that in the Russian army medical care was provided only to wounded officers, forgetting about ordinary soldiers, he was the first who vowed to change this unfair situation.
In the same year, Y.V. Willie submitted his first scientific work to the University of Aberdeen as a doctoral dissertation and received a Doctor of medicine degree in absentia, without having a university diploma.
In 1795, J.V. Willie retired and for several years was the house physician of a major nobleman. While in private practice, he was a doctor of two Russian tsars: Paul I, Alexander I. Without stopping practicing surgery, he successfully performed many technically complex interventions, including laryngotomy and amputation of the upper limbs.
After the sudden death of Catherine II and the accession to the throne of her son Paul I, J.V. Willie in 1798 became a "court operator", and in 1799 – the life surgeon of Emperor Paul.
In 1806, thanks to the assistance of Y.V. Willie, the first surgical clinic in Russia with 13 beds was opened, soon it expanded two and a half times, and clinical training of students of the Medical and Surgical Academy in surgery began there. In addition, in the same year, Yakov Willie was appointed chief Military Medical Inspector of the army (he held this position until his death in 1854) and director of the medical Department of the War Ministry (in this position, Ya.V. Willie worked until 1836).
Yakov Vasilyevich headed the St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy (1808-1838), became its first president. The main provisions of the revised Willie charter were as follows: teaching at the academy was conducted in Russian, admission to the academy of persons of all classes was allowed, freedom was guaranteed to those serf young people who after graduation from the academy would serve in the army for six years. The number of departments in the Academy increased from 7 to 12. During the organization of training, much attention was paid to the development of practical skills by students. So in the I.F. surgical clinic. Bush, each 4th year student had to perform 4 operations independently during the academic year under the supervision of a professor. For comparison, it is worth noting that at the Moscow University of N.I. Pirogov, a student did not make a single injection on his own during the entire period of study. For persons who submitted a description of at least three successful operations, the degree of medical surgeon was awarded on the initiative of Y.V. Willie. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Willie, because of his busy schedule, very rarely appeared at the meetings of the Academy conference, but he closely monitored the activities of professors and the level of training of graduates. He laid the foundations of scientific exactingness, a high level of teaching and the spirit of democracy, which were preserved in the following centuries.
The professional activity of Y.V. Villie became especially noticeable during the Patriotic War of 1812, when he was entrusted with the responsible task of providing medical care to the many thousands of Russian army. As a military doctor, while serving as chief military medical inspector, he commanded the medical service of M.I. Kutuzov's army. Willie operated personally (he performed about 80 operations during the Battle of Borodino alone), and also advised military doctors. An integral part of medical support during the war was the "Regulations for temporary military hospitals with a large active army", compiled under the leadership of Villiers in 1812. According to this provision, 70 "temporary military hospitals" were formed and staffed in advance. First aid to the wounded was provided in dressing stations in the immediate vicinity of the battle site in shelters. Orderlies were engaged in carrying out the wounded to military "delivery hospitals". Each army was assigned 3 such hospitals, they were managed by doctors. While continuing to improve the system of transportation from the battlefield and first aid to the wounded, due to the lack of doctors, it was impossible to organize assistance in the advanced points and in the delivery hospitals. With the participation of Yakov Willie, delivery and mobile hospitals were introduced. Despite the fact that the progressiveness of such a system of transportation and assistance was not confirmed by the positive outcome of the Battle of Borodino, it was the prototype of the modern organization of staged treatment of the wounded in the war.
In April 1813, J.V. Willie arrived in Bunzlau to the dying Kutuzov. The Prussian life-medic Gufeland, who was with the Field Marshal, gave way to Yakov Vasilyevich with the words: "I would not want to tarnish my reputation as a doctor by the death of such a great man." On the recommendation of Alexander I, the life-physician Willie became a baronet of the British Empire at the end of the war (1814). Staying with the delegation in England, the emperor recommended to his beloved doctor, in whose native land they were staying, to contact the persons of the royal family in order to obtain some symbols of the monarch's mercy and appreciation of the virtues of Napoleon's victors. Willie expressed his desire to be awarded the titles of knight and baronet. Russian Russian Emperor's request was fulfilled, and the Scot at the court of the Russian monarch was elevated to the dignity of a baronet and a knight of the British Empire. Ya.V. Willie is the only holder of this foreign title in Russian history, which was approved by the decision of the Senate of the Russian Empire personally to him.
Since March 1820 – Senior doctor of the Guards Cavalry. Court Counsellor (1821). Inspector of the infirmaries of the Infantry Guards regiments (1823). Since March 1824 – personal physician of Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich and his wife Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna with simultaneous execution of the post of divisional doctor of artillery (until 1849).
The pen of Y.V. Willie belongs to a great scientific work – "Pharmacopaea field Russian" ("Pharmacopaea castrensis Ruthenica"), which has passed 5 editions (1808, 1812, 1818, 1840, 1848) and operated until 1860. Each time J.V. Willie supplemented and processed it in accordance with the progress of medicine and chemistry: thus, the volume of the 4th edition of the book was about 800 pages in Latin. He wrote it as a reference book for doctors, where he gave the names of diseases in which certain medications should be used. The Field Pharmacopoeia, the first Russian military pharmacopoeia, was, in fact, both a scientific essay and a practical guide.
Ya.V. Willie publishes a pocket practical surgical manual on military field surgery. According to the instructions of Y.V. Villa, from 1811 to 1816, the first medical journal in Russia was published – the Universal Journal of Medical Science (since 1823 – the Military Medical Journal). This circumstance was noted by the famous English physician August Bozzius Granville, who arrived in Russia in 1927.
Yakov Vasilyevich was married to Vera Ivanovna Ryul (03.08.1811 – 11.01.1893), the daughter of the life physician Ivan Fedorovich Ryul from his marriage with Avdotya Sergeevna Sergeeva. He had a son, Mikhail Yakovlevich Willie (07.04.1838 – 11/16/1910), a well–known watercolor artist and three daughters, Anna, Elena and Christina.
No information could be found about Anna Yakovlevna. Elena (13.11.1833 – 27.07.1921) in 1854 married Alexander Bogdanovich von Gelfreich, a transfiguration officer, later a lieutenant general, commander of the Izmailovsky Life Guards regiment. Christina was also married to Baron Alexander Alexandrovich von Grevenitz, a full state councilor, director of the Electric Lighting Joint Stock Company.
Conclusion: Y.V. Willie spent more than half a century in the service of military medicine. He became an outstanding military doctor of his time. Having headed the entire Russian military medicine, he contributed to its development in every possible way, he actually created the military medical service in the form in which it appeared before the invasion of Napoleon: he organized a drainage model of treatment, a multi-stage system of evacuation of the wounded from the battlefield, the key ideas of which are still applied to the medical service of all armies of the world.
His ancestral motto "By Work and Knowledge" accurately conveys his character: he had a rare depth of knowledge and great diligence, which allowed him to serve worthily for the good of the Fatherland and save the lives of hundreds of soldiers and officers.

About the authors

Kira Aleksandrovna Ermolaeva

Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education "Smolensk State Medical University" of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation (FGBOU VO "SSMU" of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation), Smolensk, ul. Krupskaya, 28

Author for correspondence.
Email: kira.ermolaeva.2003@mail.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1301-3658

Student, medical faculty

Russian Federation, Smolensk, Krupskaya str., 28

Eleonora Igorevna Vladimirova

SGMU

Email: Eleonoravladimirova2002@yandex.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-5545-5481

Student, 2

Russian Federation, Smolensk, Krupskaya str., 28

References