The Wandering Surgeon – A Vibrant, Colorful, and Unexpectedly Eventful Life of the First Latvian Professor of Surgery, Jānis Dzirne

Alongside serious scientific endeavors and notable achievements, recognized even beyond Latvia, the professor was characterized by an insatiable curiosity about the world, adventurously changing workplaces and countries, so much so that even the end of his life remains unknown. Few of our medical professionals have led such a colorful life – it could perhaps only be compared to that of the first presumed Latvian doctor, Jānis Reiters, who roamed across Europe in the 17th century.

Amid the vibrant chaos of his biography, much remains unknown, but J. Dzirne’s origins and academic career are broadly clear. He hailed from a well-known Latvian family in Vidzeme, whose earliest known ancestor was the hernhutite teacher Jānis (still without a surname) from Brežuciems, who died in 1766. His direct descendants and relatives produced many notable Latvian figures from the Valmiera region:

• peasant rights advocate Tenis Dzirne (1735–1808),

• pastor and writer Krišjānis Dzirne (1829–1896),

• microbiologist and epizootologist Professor Eižens Zemmers (1843–1906) and his brothers:

  • veterinarian Professor Aleksandrs Zemmers (1846–1914),

  • military doctor, Actual State Councilor (Major General) Georgs von Zemmers (1849–1910),

• lawyer and public figure Frīdrihs Grosvalds (1850–1924),

• painter Jāzeps Grosvalds (1891–1920),

• book publisher Henrijs Visendorfs (1861–1916),

• pastor and writer Jānis Ērmanis (1862–1932),

• poet Jānis Ruģēns (1817–1876),

• journalist Hermanis Asars (1882–1942),

• literary critic Jānis Asars (1877–1908),

• linguist Academician Jānis Endzelīns (1873–1961) and his brother, journalist and local historian Hermanis Endzeliņš (1867–1953),

• composer Professor Jāzeps Vītols (1863–1948),

• teacher and historian Valdemārs Dāvids Balodis (1848–1918),

• poet Rieteklis (Jūlijs Balodis, 1856–1940),

• archaeologist Professor Francis Balodis (1882–1947), and others.

The future surgeon, a great-great-grandson of Jānis from Brežuciems and son of pastor Krišjānis Dzirne, was born on January 11, 1861 (December 29, 1860, old style) in Tartu, where his father served in the Latvian Jānis congregation. Already in childhood, he explored the world, living in the Samara Governorate, Jelgava, and Rauna.

He received his secondary education at the Jelgava Gymnasium and the Bērzaine Gymnasium in Cēsis. From 1881 to 1888, he studied at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tartu, then furthered his knowledge in St. Petersburg, worked as an assistant at the Tartu University Gynecology Clinic, and practiced in Lelle and Torgel in Pärnu County, where he opened a pharmacy. Under the guidance of Professor Rudolf Kobert (1854–1924), he prepared and defended his doctoral dissertation Ein Beitrag zur Lehre vom Tod durch Ertrinken (A Contribution to the Study of Death by Drowning) in Tartu on December 3, 1891, which paved the way for his further career.

In Reval (Tallinn) in 1892, J. Dzirne opened a private gynecology clinic with 20 beds, but the venture failed, and after three years, he moved to the Volga region, familiar from his childhood, where he stayed, with two interruptions, until 1904. He served as a surgical resident, department head, and eventually chief physician at the Samara Governorate zemstvo hospital, as well as the doctor for Samara’s post and telegraph services.

His first significant practical and scientific contribution was the Small Gynecology Handbook for Zemstvo Doctors, published in Russian in Samara in 1897. During his first break in 1897–1898, he honed his skills in clinics in Berlin, Heidelberg, and Bern, and during the second break, he donned a uniform and served as a senior surgeon for the Russian Red Cross on the sanitary ship Tsarina during the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900–1901.

He returned to China, again in uniform, during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, serving as the chief physician of a sanitary unit and distinguishing himself in the battles of Mukden (earning five awards – more than any other doctor!). By this time, he had already gained a reputation as a promising surgeon, confirmed by articles in specialized journals on gynecology, urology, abdominal, thoracic, battlefield surgery, and neurosurgery, which opened the door to an academic career.

After further training with the renowned German surgeon August Bier (1861–1949) in Bonn, J. Dzirne became an assistant to the prominent Russian surgeon Pyotr Dyakonov (1855–1909) at Moscow University in 1906, a privatdozent in urology from 1907, and was elected extraordinary professor in 1909. In 1907, during a trip to Vladivostok, he organized the surgical department of the city hospital, and from 1909 to 1911, he was concurrently the chief physician of the Tula Governorate zemstvo clinical hospital.

In 1911, J. Dzirne was appointed full professor at the Faculty of Medicine of Moscow University and director of the 1st Hospital Surgery and Urology Clinic. It should be emphasized that he was the first Latvian surgeon to achieve such a high and respected academic position, unattainable for subsequent generations of surgeons. The period before World War I was the most productive and peaceful in the professor’s life, aside from annual trips abroad. Numerous studies were published in Russian, German, and English medical journals, including his monograph Injuries and Surgical Diseases of the Urinary Tract (Moscow, 1911), a comprehensive textbook Cystoscopy (St. Petersburg, 1909), and an extensive original manual Operative Urology (Petrograd, 1914; 508 pages with 566 partially colored illustrations). J. Dzirne became, and was later recognized in literature as, one of the most outstanding urologists of the Russian Empire of his time. He also engaged in andrology.

With the outbreak of World War I, tired of the constant intrigues of university professors, J. Dzirne donned a uniform again and served as the chief physician of several military and evacuation hospitals in Poland and Asia Minor. He attained the rank of State Councilor (equivalent to a colonel), adding to his collection of awards: the Order of St. Vladimir 4th Class with Swords, the Order of St. Anna 2nd Class with Swords, the Order of St. Stanislaus 2nd Class, and medals. In 1916, the professor returned to Moscow University, but in March 1917, following historical changes (the February Revolution), he left it for good.

The years of wandering began. J. Dzirne went to Crimea, then to the Caucasus, worked for a year and a half in Constantinople, served as the chief physician of a sanatorium in Varna, worked for about a year in Sofia, and spent another year conducting research in Berlin. There, he received an invitation from the newly established Vytautas the Great University in Kaunas, where he was appointed full professor and the first head of the Department of Propaedeutic and Operative Surgery in 1922. Although he worked in Kaunas for only a year, he left a mark on Lithuanian medical history, as among his assistants was the later prominent Lithuanian surgeon Academician Vladas Kuzma (1892–1942).

The following summer, J. Dzirne embarked on a two-month trip to Berlin, Hamburg, Paris, and Geneva, which he extended to four months and did not return to Kaunas. The reason was a conflict between the military and civilian sectors in Kaunas: his clinic was located in a military hospital, and the military believed the university clinic was for the poor, where professors experimented on patients, while the hospital treated officers, defenders of the homeland (specifically pilots), not guinea pigs. A commission refuted these suspicions, but J. Dzirne had already made his decision.

The professor found no peace and, receiving an attractive and prestigious offer, set off on another journey. From 1923 to 1924, he served as the General Inspector of Medicine in Abyssinia (Ethiopia), physician to Empress Zauditu and heir to the throne Ras Tafari Makonnen. However, the highland climate of Africa harmed his health, and he went to Paris to finally find his way back to his homeland.

In 1925, J. Dzirne settled not in Riga but in Liepāja, where he headed the surgical department of the city hospital for a year and a half. Interestingly, in September 1925, the Liepāja city council proposed to the Ministry of Education to transfer the fifth year of the University of Latvia’s Faculty of Medicine to the Liepāja hospital, where conditions were better, as Riga struggled to establish a faculty clinic. This was likely J. Dzirne’s initiative, but Riga decided that “the faculty cannot be split.”

After the death of Professor Jānis Jankovskis (1876–1925), the University of Latvia’s Hospital Surgery Department became vacant, and J. Dzirne applied for the position, winning over another candidate, Professor Vladimirs Mincs (1872–1945), by two votes. The Hospital Surgery Department and clinic were located at the Red Cross Hospital, and J. Dzirne led them from 1926 to 1929. His most significant contribution during this period was the first surgery textbook in Latvian, published in 1928, which served students and doctors for about two decades. The book is substantial (403 pages), well-illustrated (324 images), and met the standards of its time, as the professor was well-versed in European surgical literature. It covered the main branches of surgery, except urology, which was planned for a separate (unpublished) book. Moreover, the book was written quickly and in a short time, reflecting the author’s experience, erudition, and love for his work. Notably, the text is written in clear and harmonious Latvian, with interesting Latvian terms replacing common Latinisms and borrowed medical jargon. The greatest credit for this goes to J. Dzirne’s assistant, Jānis Šulcs (1885–1979), who edited the text, as the professor, after long years abroad, had partially forgotten Latvian, let alone literary Latvian, which was not taught in schools at the time.

Yet, even in Riga, the professor found no peace and faced envy from younger colleagues, such as Professor Jēkabs Alksnis (1870–1957), with whom a conflict dated back to the Russo-Japanese War, when the senior reprimanded the junior, and now the junior, in power, sought to retaliate. Where do our people get such unfortunate traits!

In the summers, Professor J. Dzirne traveled abroad, but in 1929, he requested an extended leave to treat gout. A few months later, the university received a letter from J. Dzirne in Egypt, stating he had recovered but wished to extend his leave. Later, a telegram from Sydney, Australia, indicated he wanted to return to Riga but needed travel funds. The university’s patience ran out, and they decided to dismiss the wanderer. It seems the professor attempted to circumnavigate the globe but was forced to turn back, as his last letter to the university, dated April 29, 1931, was sent from Baghdad. Since then, the traces of J. Dzirne, who was already seventy, vanished.

Until now, encyclopedic literature listed his death as 1931 with a question mark. However, this was mistaken! The world wanderer found no rest and eventually reached America! While researching the fates of Russian White Guard mercenaries in the Paraguayan army during the Chaco War against Bolivia over oil fields from 1932 to 1935, historian Timofei Shevyakov found Ivan Christianovich Dzirne among them! He arrived in Paraguay in 1933 with several Russian doctors and practically built the country’s military medical service from scratch, drawing on his extensive experience.

Despite harsh and complex conditions, the elderly professor operated on the battlefield and conducted research, evidently still full of energy. After the war, J. Dzirne stayed in Asunción, and in 1938, in recognition of his contributions to the country, he was appointed Paraguay’s Honorary Consul General in the Middle East, with a residence in Beirut. Let us not rush to put an end to his life and wait—perhaps news will come from Beirut as well. Not for nothing did the 1939 Latvian biographical dictionary Es viņu pazīstu (p. 148) state about Jānis Dzirne that he was “currently abroad for study purposes.”

How to evaluate Jānis Dzirne’s life? Working in various clinics undoubtedly broadened his horizons, and his professional career was generally successful. However, the ease with which he kaleidoscopically changed workplaces suggests a lack of stability. It’s not necessary to spend an entire life in one place, but excessive wandering is even less needed. Still, the first Latvian professor of surgery, Jānis Dzirne, should be remembered as an undeniably gifted, talented, and capable scientist who left his mark not so much in Latvia’s history but in the history of surgery and urology in several other countries.