SOVIET DISEASE: HISTORY OF VEGETATIVE-VASCULAR DYSTONIA INVENTION

© 2021 Anastasia Belyaeva

2021 – № 2 (22)


DOI: https://doi.org/10.33876/2224-9680/2021-2-22/02

Citation link:

Belyaeva A. M. (2021). Sovetskaja bolezn’: istorija izobretenija vegetososudistoj distonii [Soviet Disease: History of Vegetative-vascular Dystonia Invention]. Medicinskaja antropologija i biojetika [Medical Anthropology and Bioethics], 1 (21).


Author info:

Anastasia Belyaeva, Cand. Philos. Sc., is an Associate Professor in the Pirogov Medical University.


Keywords: vegetative-vascular dystonia, VVD, medical anthropology, history of Russian medicine

Abstract. The article reviews vegetative-vascular dystonia (VVD) as a culturally specific syndrome that exclusively existed in Soviet medicine. The text discusses the history of this disease’s research. Various stages of VVD’s construction as a specifically Soviet disease are elicited. The history of VVD started as a history of neurasthenia; the latter was attributed to the same symptoms as VVD, which emerged later. Next, I. P. Pavlov and the Great Patriotic War both affected the understanding of neurasthenia. As a result, it became a starting stage of the hypertonic disease and was renamed “vegetative dystonia”. As a standalone disease and diagnosis VVD emerged in the 1980s. In the same decade, it acquired popularity not only among doctors but also a wider audience. This prominence may be attributed to VVD embodying the everyday hardships that Soviet people faced during the late Soviet period and Perestroika. Therefore, VVD throughout its history was a disease closely connected to the political situation and evolved with the latter: many shifts it went through were a result of political and social processes.


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