The 100th anniversary of outstanding Azerbaijani scientist-ophthalmologist, academician Zarifa Aliyeva is marked on April 28. Academician Zarifa Aliyeva's research and great achievements as a scientist constitute a special stage in the history of Azerbaijani medical science.

In 1942, having finished high school, she entered the Treatment and Prophylaxis Faculty of the Azerbaijan State Medical Institute, which she graduated in 1947. Then she acquired a specialization in ophthalmology in Moscow City after successfully completing the 2-year advanced training course at the All-Union Central Doctors Improvement Institute.

She started his career in 1949 as a researcher at the Azerbaijan State Institute for the Improvement of Physicians and devoted her entire life to the field of ophthalmology.

Eye diseases, especially trachoma, were widespread in Azerbaijan in the 1940s and 1950s. It was necessary to save people from this trouble, as well as to conduct fundamental research on another urgent problem - occupational eye diseases, to develop their effective treatment methods and preventive measures.

Thus, life itself determines the topic of the young researcher's scientific research, and she devotes the initial stage of her scientific direction to the treatment of trachoma. She was going to the regions where this disease is more widespread, discovered disease centers, gave lectures to ophthalmologists, and conducted conversations among the population.

Not long after, Mrs. Zarifa achieved successful results in the application of synthomycine in the early stages of trachoma. At the end of her studies, in 1959, she successfully defended her candidate's thesis on "The treatment of trachoma with synthomycine in combination with other therapeutic methods". The treatment method proposed by her was widely applied in our republic and played an important role in the elimination of trachoma as a disease.

As an ophthalmologist-scientist, Ms. Zarifa paid special attention to the diagnosis, treatment of glaucoma and inflammation of the visual organ. Ms. Zarifa was the first researcher in this field. For the first time in the world, she created a scientific-research laboratory investigating the occupational pathology of the organ of vision and laid the foundation of a new direction in the world of science - Occupational ophthalmology. Summarizing the preliminary results of her research in this field, she wrote a PhD dissertation on the topic "The condition of the organ of vision in workers of the chemical industry of Azerbaijan".

In 1977, she was awarded a Doctor of Medical Science degree.

Large-scaled scientific-research works of the outstanding scientist that was conducted in large industrial enterprises of the republic were reflected in her valuable monographs like "Occupational pathology of the eye in tire production", "Ophthalmology during chronic iodine intoxication" and "Prophylaxis of occupational eye disease in the iodine industry". In 1981, Zarifa Aliyeva was awarded the highest prize in the field of ophthalmology - the Prize named after Academician M.I.Averbakh of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR for the great contribution she made to the development of ophthalmology - researches she conducted in the field of professional pathology of vision. Professor Z. Aliyeva was the first woman, who was awarded that prize.

She was a member of the Presidium of the All-union Society of Ophthalmologists, the Soviet Peace Protection Committee, the Board of Directors of the Azerbaijan Ophthalmology Society, as well as, editorial board of the "Vestnik ophthalmology" journal (Moscow).

The body of Zarifa Aliyeva, who died in Moscow on April 15, 1985, was brought to Baku from Moscow's Novodevichye Cemetery in 1994 and buried in the Alley of Honor, next to her father's grave.