Advice from a Soviet surgeon who lived to be 104: 12 rules for longevity

“The beautiful Russian river Lena gave me strength,” Dr. Uglov said of himself. He was born in 1904 in the small village of Chuguevo, located a thousand kilometers from Irkutsk. Fedor’s father was an exiled metalworker, his mother was a peasant. The family was large: Fedor had two brothers and three sisters.

The first and most important authority for Fedor was his mother. A simple uneducated woman, she was kind to others and demanding of herself. Anastasia Uglova taught the same to her children, repeating: “Do as much good as possible and do not expect gratitude from it.” Throughout his life, Fedor followed this alliance: he did not seek glory and tried to do his job conscientiously. He also instructed his students: each patient should be approached with such tenderness and care, as if in front of you was the closest person.

The second youth idol for Fedor was a local doctor – Dr. Svetlov. Seeing how Svetlov literally withdrew people from the other world, Uglov decided that he would also become a doctor. The young man came to the institute almost like Lomonosov: for a whole month he traveled by boat, on horseback, by steamer, and sometimes just on foot.

Uglov studied selflessly. They say he once heard from a teacher: “You are not a surgeon, but even a janitor, you cannot work with such hands.” After that, Fedor spent every free hour doing special exercises for the flexibility and strength of his fingers, trained to make neat cuts and seams on rolls of wet gauze. And it gave results: soon the student received praise from the same person.

In his second year, Fedor almost died: he went to Leningrad and returned with typhus – typhoid and typhus, as well as sepsis and complications. Without the help of a classmate Vera Trofimova, who was studying to become a gynecologist, the guy would have died. But the girl heroically cared for Fedor, torn between studies, caring for the sick and raising her child, whom she raised alone. After recovering, Uglov proposed to her and they got married.

Fedor graduated in 1929 in Saratov. After that he practiced in the Volga Kislovka, Kirensk, Abkhazia. And in 1937 he entered the graduate school of the Leningrad Medical Institute. Local doctors, having heard about the unique developments of Uglov, did not believe that this was possible. “These are all inventions of Baron Munchausen,” Professor Anton Martynovich Zabudovsky said of Fyodor’s operations. And, of course, he changed his mind after working with the same Munchausen.

All 872 days of the blockade, the surgeon stayed in Leningrad, saving the sick and wounded. He nearly died on meager rations due to the colossal workload: he could barely stand and it was dark before the doctor’s eyes. He was saved by an accident: for a month Fedor was appointed deputy director of the hospital, whose duties included taking food samples for patients. Even though they were just crumbs, they helped the man, giving him the strength to keep fighting for his life.

When the war ended, Uglov remained in Leningrad. He worked not only in large clinics, but also traveled around the region, helping people in small villages. It is impossible to count exactly how many patients Fedor saved their lives. Like many other surgeons of his generation, he was a generalist: he performed the most complex operations of the heart, lungs and esophagus. A lot – for the first time in the history of world medicine. It was Uglov who invented the artificial heart valve.

“Professor Uglov is your national treasure. He moved surgery as high as you moved the conquest of space, ”said the famous American cardiac surgeon Michael Ellis DeBakey about the Soviet specialist.

Before entering medical school, Uglov graduated from a pedagogical college, and therefore was an excellent mentor. He raised several generations of doctors and never tires of repeating: there is no place for people with cruel hearts in surgery. He also liked to say: the profession of doctor is difficult, but no other profession brings so much happiness and satisfaction. Physicians are those who fight death every day and defeat it.

Fedor found time for everything: he was also an activist in various fields. Early in his career, back in Abkhazia, Uglov became one of the actors of dispossession: he sincerely believed that the division between rich and poor was unfair. At the same time, he begins to fight for sobriety: he gives lectures on the dangers of alcohol, writes letters to the government, believing that vices must be fought “from above”. In the 1950s, Uglov enthusiastically set about teaching citizens of the Union a healthy lifestyle, teaching how to eat, exercise, and work to live a long life and avoid disease.

Until the end of his life, Uglov remained cheerful. He was married three times, and his last son was born when the surgeon was 66 years old, and a 32-year-old younger woman became Fedor’s wife. Uglov performed his last operation at the age of 100. Until his death, the doctor continued to work: he consulted patients, monitored the progress of operations and wrote scientific articles. The doctor died at the age of 104 from a broken heart.

Uglov collected all his recommendations for a healthy lifestyle in 12 rules, which he called “Memo to the Russian centenary”. Here are the items included:

There were also rules that were not included in the memo, but which Uglov strictly adhered to. He considered important not only weight, but also physical activity, but he preferred not sports, but household chores – vacuuming, chopping firewood, removing snow. Of all the exercises, the surgeon mostly respected the squat, considering it necessary to maintain the health of the legs and the pelvic region.

Uglov did not sit on diets: he ate all the food, but in small portions. I avoided only kefir and kvass – even the meager percentage of alcohol contained in them, the doctor did not like. Every week, Fedor stood on the scales, and as soon as an extra kilogram appeared on it, he immediately told his wife: “Don’t feed me anymore!” Until the end of his life, Fedor maintained an athletic figure.

Uglov maintained his mental alertness thanks to the constant change of activity. He constantly found new hobbies, goals and objectives for himself. For example, being right-handed, Fedor learned to work just as skillfully with his left hand, and it didn’t matter what he was holding in it – a pen or a scalpel. In addition, Uglov constantly wrote articles, got acquainted with the latest developments in the field of surgery and communicated with other specialists. He also knew many poems by heart and recited them with pleasure.

Well, perhaps the main principle of Fyodor Uglov can be called his words from the book “Man is not enough for a century”: “Why does a person live on Earth? Do good. Everything else flows from there.”

Pictured: Alexander Batanov, Lev Porter/TASS; A. Bakharev/TASS; Yuri Belinsky/TASS; Vitaly Sozinov/TASS; Anton Denisov/TASS