Dogel, Valentin Alexandrovich

(b. Kazan, Russia, 10 March 1882; d. Leningrad, U.S.S.R., 1 June 1955)

zoology.

His father, A. S. Dogel, was first dissector in the department of histology in Kazan, and then professor in the departments of histology in Tomsk (1888–1894) and in St. Petersburg (1894–1922). V. A. Dogel graduated in 1904 from the natural sciences section of the physics and mathematics faculty of St. Petersburg University and was professor of invertebrate zoology at the university from 1914 to 1955. He occupied the chair of zoology at the (Herzen) Pedagogical Institute for Women from 1908 to 1938, and from 1930 to 1955 was head of the laboratory of fish diseases in the All-Union Institute of Economy for Lake and River Fish and of the laboratory of sea protozoa of the Zoological Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He was made corresponding member of the Academy in 1939.

Dogel’s scientific career was devoted to protozoology and the comparative anatomy of invertebrates. In the area of protozoology he studied the morphology and taxonomy of Gregarina, Dinoflagellata, Catenata, Polymastigina, and Hypermastigina (from the intestines of termites) and Infusoria from the stomach of ruminants (Ophryoscolecidae); and he established the evolutionary regularity of the development of protozoa—the phenomenon of polymerization. In ecological parasitology, Dogel studied the relation of the parasitofauna of the animal host to the type of diet and to migrations (among fish and migratory birds), and also to hibernation (among bats). In the area of comparative anatomy and evolutionary morphology, in addition to establishing the taxonomic position of pantopods, Dogel formulated the general evolutionary regularities, in particular the regularity of oligomerization of homologous organs and the means by which it comes about (reduction, fusion of organs, change of function). Dogel was the author of several monographs and textbooks and over 250 specialized works. Among his students were B. E. Bykhovsky, A. P. Markevich, A. V. Ivanov, E. M. Kheysin, Y. I. Polyansky, A. A. Strelkov, and V. L. Vagin.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I.Original Works. Dogel’s writings include Catenata. Organizatsia roda Haplozoon i nekotorykh skhodnykh s nim form (“Catenata. The Organization of the Genus Haplozoon and Certain Forms Similar to Them”), diss. (St. Petersburg, 1910); Materialy k istorii razvitia Pantopoda (“Materials for a History of the Development of the Pantopoda”), diss. (1913); “Monographie der Familie Ophryoscolecidae,” in Archiv für Protistenkunde, 59 (1927), 1–282; Uchebnik sravnitelnoy anatomii bespozvonochnykh (“Textbook of Comparative Anatomy of Invertebrates”), 2 pts. (Leningrad, 1938–1940); Kurs obshchey parazitologii (”Course in General Parasitology”), 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1947); Oligomerizatsia gomologichnykh organov (“Oligomerization of Homologous Organs,” Leningrad, 1954); Allgemeine Parasitologie, rev. and enl. by Y. I. Polyansky and E. M. Kheysin (Jena, 1963), trans. as General Parasitology (Oxford, 1965); and Obshchaya protozoologia (“General Protozoology,” Moscow-Leningrad, 1962), written with Y. I. Polyansky and E. M. Kheysin.

II. Secondary Literature. On Dogel and his work, see (listed chronologically) Y. I. Polyansky, “Professor Valentin Aleksandrovich Dogel,” in Uchenye zapiski Leningradskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Seria biologicheskikh nauk, no, 2 (Leningrad, 1939); Materialy k bibliographii uchenykh SSSR. Seria biologicheskikh nauk. Parazitologia, no. 2 (Leningrad, 1952); and Y. I. Polyansky, Valentin Aleksandrovich Dogel (Leningrad, 1969), which contains additions to the list of Dogel’s works.

L. J. Blacher