About the book: 2018 / Nikolai Pirogov, a native Muscovite and a graduate of the Faculty of Medicine of Moscow University, became famous primarily as a professor at the St. Petersburg Medical-Surgical Academy, field surgeon and participant in the defense of Sevastopol. For his contemporaries, he was an example of nobility and dedication, and it was these qualities that he himself considered mandatory for a real doctor. The biographical facts given are supported by quotes from the diaries, letters and documents of the main character, as well as from an extensive corpus of letters and memoirs of people from his environment. And it is they who give the vitality and volume of a textbook personality. A detailed and conscientious study of the biography of the great Russian doctor was carried out - a century later - by Professor of the Military Medical Academy A. S. Kiselev.