| |
|
|
INTRODUCTION
The goal of this paper is to explore the life, family, education,
career, and contributions to medicine of the renowned surgeon
Vojislav Subotić. Born in Novi Sad, Subotić was a leading surgeon in
Serbia at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. He
lived for 64 years, studied in Vienna and Paris, and achieved
significant medical innovations such as inventing a splint for
immobilizing fractured femurs and introducing innovations in
ligating blood vessels. He was one of the founders of the Medical
Faculty in Belgrade and the head of the surgical department at the
General State Hospital in Belgrade. His name is associated with the
development of operative medicine in Serbia, earning him the title
of the father of practical surgery in the country. Additionally, he
served as a volunteer physician in several wars, including the Serbo-Turkish
War and World War I. The legacy of the Subotić family, donated to
the Museum of the City of Belgrade in 1975, includes 56 items, as
well as family albums and documents, mostly related to Dr. Vojislav
Subotić, his elder brother General Dejan, and their father, the
writer Dr. Jovan Subotić.
The family of Vojislav Subotić had a significant impact on Serbian
history. His mother, Savka Polit, came from a Greek (Vlach) family
that migrated to Novi Sad from Constantinople. Savka was actively
involved in the educational sector and fought for women's rights.
She founded various educational institutions and women's
organizations in different cities, such as the "Udruženje gospođa"
in Zagreb, the "Ženska zadruga" in Novi Sad, and the "Viša ženska
škola" in Pančevo and Novi Sad. She was also one of the founders and
the first president of the "Kolo srpskih sestara," where she
emphasized the importance of educating children for the future of
the nation. Savka was known for her dedication and enthusiasm in
promoting Serbian women's folk art and crafts at domestic and
international exhibitions. She particularly praised the Pirot
carpets, calling them "poetry of women's hands in line with Serbian
folk songs." Savka was recognized as the "mother of her people" by
the poet Aleksa Šantić. Her contribution to the struggle for women's
rights and the promotion of Serbian culture was significant and left
a mark in history.
Vojislav Subotić's father, Jovan Subotić, was also a notable figure
in Serbian history. He held a doctorate in law and philosophy and
worked as a lawyer, poet, and playwright. Jovan Subotić was the
editor of the Letopis Matice srpske, a leader of the Serbian people
in Vojvodina, the organizer of the Assembly of Serbs in Pest in
1848, a participant in the May Assembly in Sremski Karlovci, the
founder of the Karlovci Patriarchate, and the president of the
Matica srpska in Novi Sad. He was also involved in editing the
newspaper "Narod" and overseeing the financing of the Theater. He
worked on connecting Serbian and Croatian political centers such as
Novi Sad, Zagreb, Osijek, and Belgrade.
Jovan and Savka Subotić had six children: Vida, Verica, Branislav,
Ozren, Dejan, and Vojislav. Vida and Ozren died at a young age from
smallpox. Branislav became a diplomat, while Dejan served in the
Russian army. He joined the Serbian army in the First Serbo-Turkish
War in 1876/7. Afterward, he became an honorary Serbian consul
general in Crimea and participated in both Balkan Wars and World War
I. He died in 1920 and was buried in the family tomb at the Zemun
cemetery.
BIOGRAPHY OF VOJISLAV SUBOTIĆ
Vojislav Subotić was born in Novi Sad. He received his education
in Zagreb and Novi Sad, where he completed his secondary education.
He studied medicine in Vienna and Paris. During his education, he
worked as a demonstrator under Professor Karl Rokitansky in Vienna.
Subotić completed his medical studies in 1881, at the age of only
22. He pursued his specialization under Professor Eduard Albert in
Vienna, who was the head of the First University Surgical Clinic.
Picture 1. Doctor Vojislav Subotic
Albert was known for introducing antisepsis, new surgical
procedures in surgery such as junostomy and nephrectomy, as well as
for performing the first nerve transplant and many other
achievements. Subotić also studied under Karel Maydl, who introduced
colostomy in abdominal surgery. After acquiring knowledge from these
great surgeons, Subotić was appointed as a physician and primary
care physician in Zemun, where he founded the Surgical Department
and became the head of the hospital. There, he performed complex
surgeries and published papers in prestigious scientific journals in
Austria-Hungary and Germany. He assumed the position of head of the
Surgical Department at the General State Hospital in Belgrade at the
beginning of 1889. He immediately began significant work on the
development and advancement of Serbian surgery. Some publications
add the word "Elder" to distinguish him from another Vojislav,
Vojislav M. Subotić, the first Serbian neuropsychiatrist. Both
gentlemen contributed to Serbian medicine in different ways, leaving
a significant impact on society. The surgeries performed by Dr.
Subotić successfully, at a time when modern medical technological
advancements such as endotracheal anesthesia, parenteral
rehydration, blood transfusion, and antibiotics did not exist, were
truly heroic endeavors. Today, many of the complex surgeries he
successfully performed can only be performed by a small number of
surgeons in our country, demonstrating how great and skilled he was
in his profession.
In Serbia today, almost every branch of surgery can be associated
with the work of Dr. Subotić, who performed surgeries on all organs.
Evidence of this can be found in available literature. Unlike other
nations who proudly record the beginnings of their surgery, due to
insufficient knowledge of the history of Serbian surgery, even
distinguished surgery professors date the beginnings of "their"
branches of surgery decades after Subotić and his colleagues
routinely performed them. Dr. Vojislav Subotić, a surgeon of great
reputation, was known for his modesty. He always operated with
closed doors, restricting access only to physicians, avoiding any
advertising that he considered inappropriate for a serious
physician. Dr. Mihailo Petrović praised his stance on advertising.
Today, such behavior could serve as an example for the majority. Dr.
Subotić made sketches for projects that a design firm in Budapest
used to build Surgical Pavilions on West Vračar in 1907. Those
pavilions were among the most modern in Europe at the time. They
were used until the 1970s when they were demolished. Subotić edited
a compendium entitled "The First Yugoslav Meeting for Operative
Medicine" in 1912. The compendium was printed by "Nova štamparija"
of Save Radenković and his brother and comprised 538 pages of text,
including all papers and discussions in full, as well as 108 images
and one color table. Additionally, the Second Yugoslav Meeting for
Operative Medicine was held on September 5th and 6th, 1921,
organized by Miroslav Čačković, a professor at the Medical Faculty
in Zagreb. Subotić was elected president of the Serbian Medical
Society five times in a five-year period, described as a "period of
scientific momentum" by Dr. Bukić Pijade.
Dr. Subotić was an exceptionally important Serbian patriot who
participated in multiple wars and provided aid to the wounded. As a
surgeon and physician, he was active in wars against Turkey and
Bulgaria, as well as in World War I. He organized meetings with
surgeons from different countries to analyze and share their wartime
experiences in treating war injuries. In this way, he contributed to
the exchange of knowledge and the advancement of surgical practice
in caring for the wounded. In 1913, he initiated one of the first
clinical programs that emphasized reconstruction, instead of
ligating, injured arteries and veins. Surgeons from around the world
visited his clinic to assist in this program, and at a presentation
in London (1913), there were discussions about the experience in
managing 77 injured major blood vessels, resulting in 32 vascular
reconstructions - 19 arteriorrhaphies and 13 venorrhaphies.
Ironically, it took almost 40 years before similar successful
efforts were achieved during the latter part of the Korean War (1952
to 1953). Dr. Subotić was a surgeon who in World War I was destined
to surrender to the Bulgarian occupiers, but instead decided to
retreat through Albania. After the war, he served as a delegate of
the Kingdom of Serbia in the Interallied Medical Commission in
London and Paris. Upon returning to Thessaloniki, he decided to
decline the offered position of surgeon in the rear hospital and
worked in the legendary Surgical Field Hospital in Dragoman, founded
by Duke Stepa Stepanović. Upon returning to Belgrade, he began the
restoration of the Surgical Department of the General State
Hospital, which was devastated and looted.
Vojislav Subotić, a member of numerous prestigious foreign
professional societies, passed away on December 17, 1923, at the
table where he was supposed to give a lecture. Instead, his
successor at the Department, Associate Professor Milivoje Kostić,
delivered the lecture. Subotić was the recipient of numerous
domestic and foreign decorations and honors, and he began publishing
his professional works in 1886. He described various medical cases,
such as actinomycosis and operative cases of pancreatic cysts.
Additionally, in 1898, he reviewed the War Sanitary Service by
Colonel Dr. Mihailo Mika Marković, providing useful advice and
suggestions. At the First Congress of Serbian Physicians and
Naturalists, held from September 5th to 7th, 1904, he delivered a
lecture entitled "Contribution to the Pathology of Appendicitis."
Moreover, he published several papers on splenic cysts and other
spleen diseases, described injury to the hepatic duct during
abdominal trauma, and wrote about ileus, ulcer, acute and chronic
pancreatitis, intestinal tuberculosis, hernias, and a range of other
surgical diseases, as well as immobilization of fractures of the
long bones of the legs. He also wrote about the epidemic of typhoid
fever in Serbia and other important topics. His most significant
work, "Army Experience of Traumatic Aneurysms," was published in
1913 in the journal "The Lancet."
It is not possible to compile a complete bibliography of Subotić,
but the available list includes at least 38 papers, mostly published
in leading foreign journals, at least 31 reviews of books or
articles from foreign literature, several hundred reviews and
discussions recorded in the minutes of meetings of the Serbian
Medical Society on operated patients. His discussions on
non-surgical diseases at these meetings demonstrate his broad
knowledge of medicine as a whole. Subotić, raised in the orderly
state of Austria-Hungary, regularly wrote Reports on the work of the
Surgical Department of the General State Hospital in Belgrade. These
reports were sent to the Sanitary Department of the Ministry of
Internal Affairs, and from 1892 were almost regularly printed in the
"Serbian Archive for Comprehensive Medicine." He published a total
of 39 factual reports, thanks to which it is possible to reconstruct
the work and development of surgery at the Surgical Department of
the General State Hospital in Belgrade with almost complete
certainty. Unfortunately, his successor did not publish any such
reports after his death, which greatly complicates the study of the
development of interwar surgery in Serbia.
After all, the question arises: What have the post-war generations
done to honor this great son of the Serbian people? The correct
answer would be: "Enough, but not as much as it should." The street
where the Dean's Office of the Medical Faculty is located was named
after Vojislav Subotić. The former Second Surgical Clinic under the
leadership of Professor Vojislav K. Stojanović placed a bust of
Subotić in the clinic's amphitheater, the work of academician Nikola
(Koka) Janković. Professor Zoran Gerzić wrote a contribution about
Subotić in the first book of the edition of the Serbian Academy of
Sciences and Arts "Life and Work of Serbian Scientists" in 1996. The
author of these lines published "Memory" about Subotić in the
"Serbian Archive for Comprehensive Medicine" in 2003, on the
occasion of the 80th anniversary of Professor Subotić's death. The
Surgical Section of the Serbian Medical Society restored the Subotić
family tomb at the Zemun cemetery on the 80th anniversary of
Professor Subotić's death, placed a memorial plaque and a copy of
the bust in the lobby of the Serbian Medical Society building, and
placed his photograph and a picture of the house where he lived in
Zemun in the meeting room of the Serbian Medical Society. A new
portrait of Professor Subotić, made in Vienna, was placed in the
ceremonial hall of the Dean's Office of the Medical Faculty, with
his biography in the background. Additionally, lectures about him
were held, and the most comprehensive bibliography was compiled.
Picture 2. Doctor Vojislav Subotić (in the middle)
- the cornerstone of the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade
Literature:
- Čolović, R. Sto godina od smrti profesora Vojislava J.
Subbotića, rodonačelnika hirurgije u Srbiji i prvog redovnog
profesora hirurgije na Medicinskom fakultetu u Beogradu
(1859–1923). Beograd: Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti; 2023;
742-747.
- Simić, J. Dr Vojislav Subotić. Utemeljivač srpske hirurgije.
Novi Sad: Kulturni Centar Novog Sada, Dostupno na: https://www.kcns.org.rs/agora/dr-vojislav-subotic-utemeljivac-srpske-hirurgije/,
pristupljeno dana 02.05.2024. godine
- Čačković pl. Miroslav. Doktor Vojislav Subbotić. Liječnički
Vijestnik. 1924; 1–4.
- Miljanić Niko. Doktor Vojislav Subbotić. Srpski Književni
Glasnik. 1923;639–40.
- Subbotić V. Alkalaj JS. Prvi jugoslovenski sastanak za
operativnu medicinu, 5, 6 i 7. sept. Beograd; 1912; 538.
- Subbotić V. Izveštaj o radu Prvog sastanka srpskih hirurga
22. i 23. XII 1907. Beograd; 1908;94.
- Čolović R. Jubilej Medicinskog fakulteta u Beogradu.
Osnivanje Medicinskog fakulteta. Srp Arh Celok Lek. 2005;
133(11–12):535–42.
|
|
|
|
