The Autobiography of Alexander Luria: A Dialogue with The Making of Mind by Michael Cole & Karl Levitin & Alexander R. Luria

Author:Michael Cole & Karl Levitin & Alexander R. Luria [Cole, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781317759287
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2014-06-11T04:00:00+00:00

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Neuropsychology in World War II

WORLD WAR II was a disaster for all countries, and it was particularly devastating for the Soviet Union. Thousands of towns were destroyed, tens of thousands of people died from hunger alone. Many millions, both civilian and military, were killed. Among the wounded were thousands who suffered brain injury and who required extended, painstaking care.

The unity of purpose of the Soviet people so clearly felt during the great Revolution and the subsequent years reemerged in new forms. A sense of common responsibility and common purpose gripped the country. Each of us knew we had an obligation to work together with our countrymen to meet the challenge. We each had to find our place in the struggle—either in the direct defense of our country, in the preservation and expansion of industry, which was removed to remote regions of the country, or in the restoration of the health and abilities of the wounded. My institute was assigned to the latter task.

The medical corps of the Soviet army was superbly organized, earning great respect during the war and afterward. The aging Bourdenko, former head of the Institute of Neurosurgery, was by then totally deaf. But he retained his acute clearness of mind and was named surgeon general. Under his guidance and through the efforts of a group of able physicians headed by H. Smirnov, a superb system of medical care was organized.

The care of those with brain injuries was organized by N. I. Graschenkov, head of the Neurological Clinic in the Institute of Experimental Medicine and later deputy minister of health in the USSR, a neurologist as well as a neurosurgeon. He saw to it that soldiers with brain and peripheral nerve injuries received emergency medical care at the front during the first hours after being wounded. They were then sent to the Institute of Neurology in Moscow, which had been transformed into a neurosurgical hospital. Patients who required further care and special treatment were transported under careful supervision to rehabilitation hospitals in the southern Urals.

I was commissioned to organize such a hospital in the opening months of the war. I chose as the site for our hospital a newly established 400-bed sanitarium in a small village near Cheliabensk. I organized the construction of laboratories and therapeutic training rooms and recruited a team of former colleagues from Moscow to work with me. Within a month the hospital began its work.

We had two major tasks. First, we had to devise methods of diagnosing local brain lesions and of recognizing and treating complications such as inflammation and secondary infection that were caused by the wounds. Second, we had to develop rational, scientifically based techniques for the rehabilitation of destroyed functions.

Although our team of thirty researchers began with a general idea of how to carry out the work, we realized that specific solutions to the incredibly complex problems we faced could emerge only from the work itself. I personally brought to the task a small store of practical experience from my

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