Background
Iwan Iwanowich Ostromislensky was born on September 8, 1880, in Moscow, Russia, the younger in a family of two sons of Iwan Ostromislensky, an officer in the Imperial Guard, and Olga (Iwanowa) Ostromislensky.
Iwan Iwanowich Ostromislensky was born on September 8, 1880, in Moscow, Russia, the younger in a family of two sons of Iwan Ostromislensky, an officer in the Imperial Guard, and Olga (Iwanowa) Ostromislensky.
Iwan Ostromislensky graduated from the Second Military Academy (Cadet Corps of Catherine the Great) in Moscow in 1895, after which he studied until 1899 at the Polytechnicum of Moscow. In 1902 he received a M. D. degree from the University of Zurich in Switzerland, and in 1906 a Ph. D. degree from the same university. In 1907 he received the degree of chemical engineer from the Karlsruhe (Germany) Polytechnicum.
From 1907 to 1912 Ostromislensky held the post of assistant professor of chemistry at the Polytechnicum of Moscow, Moscow University, and the School of Dentistry of Moscow. From 1911 to 1916 he carried on research in a private chemical and chemotherapeutical laboratory in Moscow; it was here that he did much of his most notable work. In 1916 he became director of the chemotherapeutic division of the Scientific Institute in Moscow, and in 1917 he was appointed professor of chemistry at the University of Nizhni-Novgorod. Politically a Czarist, he fled from Russia in 1921 to reside in Riga, Latvia, where he lectured at the Polytechnical Institute. Ostromislensky first attracted the attention of rubber technologists in the United States about the year 1916, when he published several papers on methods of vulcanizing rubber by means other than sulfur.
Largely through the efforts of Ernest Hopkinson of the United States Rubber Company, Ostromislensky was brought to their general laboratories in New York City, where he served on the research staff from February 1922 to June 1925. During this period he worked mainly in the fields of polyvinylchloride, polystyrene, and synthetic rubber, to which he made notable contributions. Many of his ideas were far in advance of his time. Because of his medical training, much of Ostromislensky's early research had been in the field of chemotherapy, in which he experimented with a number of novel drugs. After leaving the United States Rubber Company in 1925 he formed, in collaboration with others, the Ostro Research Laboratories (eventually the Hopkinson Laboraties) in New York City, to promote the use of the medical compounds he had developed and to do further research work in the pharmaceutical field. He also joined for a time the Pyridium Company, formed to manufacture one of his pharmaceuticals, an antibacterial preparation. None of these ventures proved particularly successful commercially, and he severed his connections with them in 1936.
During this period, however, Ostromislensky continued his researches in the field of chemotherapy, especially as applied to parasitic diseases. He was also greatly interested in the development of a non-habit-forming substitute for morphine and in the treatment of allergic diseases. While his researches in the field of medicine and the non-sulfur vulcanization of rubber were noteworthy and of considerable fundamental importance, probably Ostromislensky's most valuable contributions were in the field of polymer research. He was a pioneer in the development of synthetic rubber. For his early work on this problem he received an award from the Czarist government. After coming to the United States he was one of the first to copolymerize a diene with styrene, the method that later became most widely used in the production of synthetic rubber. He also worked intensively while in the employ of the United States Rubber Company on polystyrene, making many valuable contributions to this field. In all these efforts, as in his experiments with polyvinylchloride, he showed remarkable foresight and ingenuity. Well liked by his associates, Ostromislensky was devoted to his family - his wife, Olga, and their two children, Tatiana and George. He became a United States citizen about the year 1930. He died of angina pectoris and coronary sclerosis at his home in New York City. Funeral services were held at the Russian Orthodox Church of Christ the Savior in New York, and his body was cremated in Fresh Pond Crematorium, Mount Olivet Cemetery, Fresh Pond, Long Island.
Iwan Ostromislensky served as president of the National League of Americans of Russian Origin and, with Count Ilya L. Tolstoy and Sergei Rachmaninoff, was a founder of the Circle of Russian Culture.
Ostromislensky was married to Olga Ostromislensky, and they had two children, Tatiana and George.