In 2002, a memorial boulder sign in honor of Yakov Narkevich-Iodko was installed at the family ancestral cemetery of Narkevich-Iodko near the manor “Nad-Neman”.
Yakub Narkievich-Yodka was a natural scientist, physicist, doctor, inventor of electrography and wireless transmission of electrical signals, professor of electrography and magnetism. He was well known in the world of science, and the popularity he enjoyed in Russia was comparable to that of Pasteur in France.
Background
Yakub Narkievich-Yodka was born on January 8, 1848, in Turin estate of the Igumen District, Minsk Region (now the Pukhavichy district of the Minsk Region), Belarus; the son of Anna (Estko) Narkievich-Yodka (granddaughter of Tadeush Kostiushko's elder sister) and Otton Onufrievich Narkievich-Yodka. He сame from Martin Yodka, a nobleman from Lida, who was granted estates in 1546.
Education
Narkievich-Yodka was educated at the Minsk Men's High School, graduating in 1865. Then he spent several years in Western Europe, where he improved his musical skills as pianist at the Paris Conservatory and gave concerts in different well-known concert halls. In addition he taught music theory at Moscow Mariinsky School.
In 1869 Narkievich-Yodka entered the medical department of the Sorbonne (University of Paris). While there, he took part in the work of scientific societies and meetings of the Paris Academy of Sciences, and those influenced his scientific views immensely. Trips to Italy, where he visited the clinics of famous Italian doctors in Rome and Florence, helped to establish his final choice of medical specialization.
Ya. Narkievich-Yodka’s scientific interests were focused on the studies of phenomena related to the effect of electricity on material objects, first of all on plants and human body. He wanted to find out whether electricity could be used to renew the physical abilities of the body.
In the early 1880s, he organized a meteorological station in his estate. The station was the biggest one in the western part of Russia and was included into the network of stations of the Central Physical Observatory of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In order to perform meteorological observations, he constructed a device to measure the speed of clouds motion, and another one to measure the soil moisture (lysimeter). Ya. Narkievich-Yodka suggested a system of hail deflectors to reduce the damage caused by thunderstorms and hails, which was highly praised at a session of the Russian Geographic Society’s Meteorological Committee.
In 1890 Narkievich-Yodka developed a device to register thunder discharges at a distance of 100 km, and he was actually the first to receive radiomagnetic waves. The fact was described by him in a scientific report. His device resembled that of A. Popov, who is considered to be the inventor of the radio in Russia. The name of Ya. Narkievich-Yodka was mentioned in the foreign press along with the name of Marconi.
Narkievich-Yodka performed the original research of plants electrical stimulation by atmospheric electricity and established that passing an electric current through the soil, where plants grow, accelerated their development, shortened their vegetation period by 3-4 weeks, and increased their sizes by several times.
In 1982 at a session of the St. Petersburg Agricultural Society he made an official report on his findings regarding the so-called electroculture. Those findings made it possible to come to a conclusion about the identity of galvanic and atmospheric electricity. He suggested a method of getting imprints of plant leaves, metallic objects, certain parts of the human body under conditions of electric discharge, giving it the name of ‘electrography’.
Later he delivered lectures for the committee of scientists of the St. Petersburg Imperial Institute of Experimental Medicine, then at the conference on electrography and electrophysiology at the University of St. Petersburg. In 1893, his findings became known to the researchers in scientific centers of Berlin, Vienna, Paris, Prague, where Ya. Narkievich-Yodka delivered lectures and demonstrated his collection of 1500 electrographic images. In 1900 at an international congress in France, he was awarded the degree of a professor of electrography and magnetism.
Ya. Narkievich-Yodka suggested the practical usage of electrography in medicine. In the mid-1890s he developed the method of electrotherapy based on local effects of electric current. It was initially tested at the Institute of Physiology in Rome and it is known as the ‘Yodka system’. The main distinction of this method lay in the fact that application points were determined by the data from electrographic images.
In addition to his scientific career, in 1892 Narkevich-Yodka became a director of the Nad-Neman sanatorium for the treatment of paralyzed patients and those with a mental disorder, which was situated on his Nadneman estate. In 1897 he was a trustee of the Ivanovo girls' school in St. Petersburg.
Achievements
Views
Quotations:
"Living organisms are energy capacitors, as well as generators of some of its varieties, which can be detected in the same ways. Like any other physical phenomena ... the human body imposes its own discharge on the gap of the subject and on the atmospheric potential."
Membership
Narkevich-Yodka was a member of the physics section of the Russian Physics and Chemistry Society, Russian Geographic Society, Minsk and St. Petersburg Agricultural Societies, corresponding member of Paris Medical, Physical, Magnetic Societies, and Electrotherapeutic Society. Narkievich-Yodka was also elected an honorary member of the Physics and Mathematics Society of Galileo in Florence. The French Electrotherapeutic Society at the Paris Academy of Sciences also awarded him the title of honorary member.
Personality
Yakub Narkievich-Yodka was an outstanding musician, excellent pianist, performer, composer, and conductor. In his estate, Nadneman a musical “Summer Festival”, was held annually. A wind band from the Kolominsky regiment arrived from Minsk. Yakub Antonavich personally conducted them and performed musical works on the piano. The choir of the Pesochansk Church was also invited. The festival began with the choral performance of the hymn “God Save the Tsar”. The repertoire of the Pesochansky choir also included church chants and local Belarusian folk songs.
Interests
Piano
Connections
In 1872, Yakub married Elena Peslyak. Though not of a noble origin, Elena became a devoted companion and the couple lived happily for 33 years. The family produced five children - three sons, and two daughters.