Shokalsky, Victor Felix

Rod December 15, 1811 in Warsaw, mind. December 25, 1890 in the same place. At the end of the course at the Warsaw Lyceum, he began to study medicine at the University of Warsaw, but the political events of 1830 prevented him from finishing the course there. He was forced to emigrate abroad, settled in Giessen and in 1834, after defending his dissertation “De facie Hyppocratica”, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Then he continued his education at the universities of Heidelberg and Würzburg and finally settled in Paris, where he became an assistant at the Sichel clinic.

In 1839, after a new exam and presentation of the dissertation “Sur la diplopie unioculaire ou double vision d'un oeil” (Paris. 1839), he received a doctorate in medicine from the Paris School of Medicine and has since devoted himself entirely to optics. Soon he attracted the attention of numerous works on ophthalmology, and many of his works have not lost their scientific interest to this day. Such, for example, is his work entitled Essai sur les sensations des couleurs dans l'état physiologique et pathologique de l'oeil and published in Annales d'Oculistique (Paris. 1839, v. II, p. 11, 37 76 and 165). In his other work, “Note sur la spécificité des ophtalmies”, published there (1844, v. XI, p. 241), Shokalsky also significantly ahead of his contemporaries, proving that when classifying eye diseases, one should proceed from the anatomy of the eye and localize them first in the conjunctiva, horn, iris and retina, and only then will there be a legitimate basis and etiological considerations. In his other works, Shokalsky also made many important discoveries in his specialty. So, he was the first to prove that the eye rotates around a center of rotation, somewhat remote from the anatomical center of the eye.

During his stay in Paris, Shokalsky was a doctor at the charity of the 7th arrondissement, the Batignolles school, and the girls' boarding house founded by Princess Chartoryzh. In 1849, he was offered the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Cracow, but the Austrian government did not approve this appointment. He then served as a doctor in the hospital of the Côte d'Or department, a doctor at the railway in Haute-Bourgonne, and finally, in 1853, at the first opportunity he had, he returned to Warsaw. After passing the third time an exam for a doctor’s degree in medicine, in 1854 he became a consultant to the Ophthalmological Institute of the Princes Lubomirski, in 1857 he was elected for his scientific services as the life secretary of the Warsaw Medical Society, and the next year he was appointed director of the Ophthalmological Institute.

In 1859, he was appointed professor of physiology at the Warsaw Medical and Surgical Academy, and in 1861 a professor of eye and ear diseases in the Main School , transformed in 1869 into the Imperial University of Warsaw . He held his last post until 1871, when, as a result of the order to replace the Polish language with Russian in teaching, he was to resign. Shokalsky published a large number of works. In 1879, Shokalski celebrated the 25th anniversary of his service at the Ophthalmology Institute, and he was presented with a lithographed group depicting his portrait surrounded by portraits of all modern Polish oculists from Russia, Austria, Germany and France. In 1884, the 50th anniversary of his medical career was solemnly celebrated. A number of institutions took part in this celebration, while the University of Giessen sent him a secondary honorary doctorate. By the anniversary of Dr. Talco, with the assistance of other Polish oculists, a book was published containing a complete biography of Shokalsky (with his portrait), a sketch of his activities, as well as a collection of materials for the history of ophthalmology in Poland from ancient times to the present. This book was published under the following title: “Dr. Józef Talko. Prof. Dr. Szokalski i jego działalność, tudzież zebranie materjałów do historyi oftalmologii w Polsce od najdawniejszych czasów aż do dni naszych ”(Warszawa. 1884). Shokalsky was a member of 33 scientists of the Academy and Societies of Russia, France, Austria and Germany.

• Shokalsky, Victor-Felix // Russian Biographical Dictionary : in 25 volumes. - SPb. - M. , 1896-1918.