[Constituent Congress of the International Society for Pathophysiology]

Pathophysiology began from general pathology due to a necessity of experimental analysis of pathological processes. Its origins date back to the works of Magenndie and Claude Bernard who introduced the concept of "experimental pathology". It is noteworthy that the founder of cellular pathology, Rudolph Virchow, emphasized the crucial importance of regulation disturbance for physiological processes as an essential mechanism of disease pathogenesis and used the term "pathological physiology". In Russia this term was defined by V.V. Pashutin in his lectures on pathological physiology (1878). In this country, in the thirties of this century pathophysiology acquired the significance of a medical discipline and was included in the medical education curricula. I. P. Pavlov, who designated pathophysiology as experimental pathology, greatly contributed to this end. In 1819, Galliot published a manual in general pathology and pathological physiology. But the first textbook in pathophysiology seems to have been written 200 years ago, as early as 1790, by professor A. F. Hecker, from the Erfurt University, who read lectures in "Physiologia pathologica". Thus, pathophysiology originated independently in various countries which testifies to the objective necessity for its origination due to medicine development. However, contemporary pathophysiology appreciably differs from that at its earlier stages of development, and even from that of several decades ago. Modern pathophysiology ceased to be just experimental pathology, it has acquired a new quality, having become an integrative biomedical science. This feature is due to medicine development, growing differentiation of medicine, and to an ever increasing body of diverse information about different pathological processes. All this brought about a necessity for the birth of an integrative medical science.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)