Today is memorial day of academician Zarifa Aliyeva

April 15 marks the 40th anniversary of the death of prominent ophthalmologist-scientist, academician Zarifa Aliyeva, SİA reports.

The research and great successes of academician Zarifa Aliyeva, who was born in the village of Shahtakhti, Nakhchivan, constitute a special stage in the history of Azerbaijani medical science. After graduating from the Azerbaijan Medical Institute, she continued her education in Moscow, at the Institute for Advanced Training of Doctors. She began her career in 1949 as a research worker at the Azerbaijan Scientific Research Institute for Advanced Training of Doctors and devoted her entire life to the field of ophthalmology.

In the 1940s and 1950s, eye diseases, especially trachoma, were widespread in Azerbaijan. It was necessary to save people from this scourge, as well as to conduct fundamental research on another topical problem - occupational eye diseases, to develop and prepare effective treatment methods and preventive measures. Zarifa Aliyeva devoted the initial stage of her scientific directions to the treatment of trachoma. She traveled to regions where this disease was more widespread, identified foci of the disease, gave lectures to ophthalmologists, and held conversations among the population.

Soon, Zarifa Aliyeva achieved successful results in the application of synthomycin in the initial period of trachoma. As a result of her research, in 1959 she successfully defended her candidate's dissertation on the topic "Treatment of trachoma with synthomycin in combination with other therapeutic methods." The treatment method she proposed was widely used in the republic and played an important role in the elimination of trachoma as a disease.

Among the urgent problems that Zarifa Aliyeva paid attention to as an ophthalmologist-scientist, diagnostics, treatment of glaucoma and inflammation of the organ of vision occupied a special place. She deeply studied the occupational pathology of the organ of vision, a scientifically little-studied area of ophthalmology. The relevance of this problem was due not only to the extensive development of the chemical and electronics industries, but also to the study of the effect of many new chemical compounds on the organ of vision. Zarifa Aliyeva was the first researcher in this field. She created the first scientific research laboratory in the world to study the occupational pathology of the organ of vision and laid the foundation for a new direction in science - occupational ophthalmology. Summarizing the initial results of her research in this area, she wrote a doctoral dissertation on the topic "The state of the organ of vision in workers of the chemical industry of Azerbaijan". In 1977, she was awarded the degree of Doctor of Medical Sciences.

For her intense and productive scientific activity, she was awarded the honorary title of "Honored Scientist" in 1980. In 1981, for the successful results of her scientific research in the field of occupational pathology of the organ of vision and her contributions to the development of ophthalmology, she was awarded the M. I. Averbakh Prize of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, the most prestigious award in the field of ophthalmology of the former Soviet Union. She is the first female scientist to be awarded this award.

Zarifa Aliyeva was elected a full member of the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences in 1983. She is also the author of a number of textbooks and monographs. Zarifa Aliyeva's works remain relevant today. She also dealt with the problems of iridology and iridotherapy, and prepared two monographs in this field. Zarifa Aliyeva was the first to write books on iridology on a global scale.

Academician Zarifa Aliyeva was a member of the former USSR Peace Defense Committee, deputy chairman of the Azerbaijan Peace Defense Committee, a member of the Board of the All-Union "Bilik" Society, and a member of the Presidium of the All-Union Scientific Society of Ophthalmologists.

Zarifa Aliyeva died in Moscow on April 15, 1985. Her body was brought to Baku from the Novo-Devichye cemetery in Moscow in 1994 and buried in the Alley of Honor, next to the grave of her father Aziz Aliyev.