Mikhail Trufanov’s painting, displayed in the exhibition of the museum, depicts Nikolay Pirogov — a surgeon and anatomist, one of the founders of topographic anatomy and military field surgery, and a well-known public figure. The canvas shows a doctor, who stands next to a wounded soldier lying on a stretcher; a sister of mercy gives him a drink.

In 1855, during the Crimean War, Pirogov became the Head Surgeon of Sevastopol, besieged by the British and French troops, and deployed a dressing station in the hall of the city Nobility Assembly.

The surgeon also developed a new triage system for the wounded. He divided patients into five categories based on the severity of injury. The first category included those whose wounds were so severe that they were unlikely to survive — the hopeless and mortally wounded, the second category — the seriously and dangerously wounded, requiring emergency surgery on the spot. The third category consisted of seriously wounded soldiers who needed treatment and transportation to the hospital. The fourth category — the patients to be sent to the hospital, and the fifth category — those who needed extracting a shallow bullet or applying a bandage. This system allowed the wounded to receive the necessary assistance on time.

Pirogov recalled: