The Military Medical Museum houses the scheme ‘Rivers Symbolizing Diseases That Flow in a Natural Stream out of the Abyss of Worldly Sinful Habits Across the Fields Depicting Human Life Force’. This is one of the first scientific and practical classifications of diseases.

The scheme was made by a doctor Vasiliy Malakhov in 1820 specifically for the Emperor Alexander I, and the engraver Lavrentiy Frolov performed the etching.

Malakhov depicted a ‘lake’ named ‘health’ in the center of the scheme. There are rivers, flowing out of this lake, that denote classes and types of diseases. The length of each river corresponds to the duration of the disease, and the color corresponds to the severity of the disease. The river tributaries symbolize complications and various outcomes of diseases.

There is one bright river in the scheme. It means fine health and ends in two lakes — ‘old age, decrepitude’ and ‘natural death’. The main idea of the scheme is that anyone can achieve longevity, if the person maintains a healthy lifestyle and avoids ‘sinful habits’.

Vasiliy Malakhov was born in 1779 in the village of Malakhovka, in the Chernigov governorate. He studied at the Chernigov Seminary, graduated from the St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy in 1801 with the First Department Doctor degree, and then he worked as a prosector at the Academy for several years. Since 1806, he worked at the St. Petersburg Traumatology Clinic of Ivan Bush.

In 1807, Vasiliy Malakhov entered the army, and participated in the Russo-Turkish War of 1806–1812 as a doctor of the 15th Infantry Division. He met Mikhail Kutuzov on the battlefront. Soon the Medical and Surgical Academy awarded Malakhov the title of Doctor of Medicine and Surgery.

During the Patriotic War of 1812, Malakhov served as general staff doctor of the 2nd Army under the command of Prince Pyotr Bagration, and participated in the famous Battle of Borodino. In the same year, Malakhov was appointed the personal physician of Field Marshal Kutuzov, and he was with the commander-in-chief until his death. Malakhov was awarded for his service with the Order of Saint Vladimir of the 4th class and the Order of Saint Anna of the 2nd class with the imperial crown. During the overseas campaign of the Russian army, Malakhov served as a field general staff doctor in the Podolsk army, since 1829 — as a hospital inspector.