The introduction of the new University Charter and the era of large-scale reforms in the middle of the XIX century, the emergence of experimental methods of research, and at the same time, the remaining urgent issues of the spread of epidemic diseases made the opening of departments of hygiene acutely necessary. The process of formation and subsequent institutionalization of hygiene teaching as a discipline has not previously been comprehensively covered by researchers in Russian historiography. The possibility of identifying a number of unresolved systemically important tasks allowing to synthesize the main directions of the scientific study of the process of hygiene development in the historical and medical knowledge from an institutional perspective was realized in this article. The history of the organization of hygiene departments in Russia is the subject of many studies. And the publications of general historical medical monographs and textbooks often contain contradictory information that does not reflect some important details and peculiarities of the formation of the traditions of teaching this discipline, which were established in the second half of the XIX century. The result of the study was clarification of data on medical workers who became the first hygiene educators in Russia. It was determined that the regular teaching of hygiene as a separate discipline began in the second semester of the 18641865 academic year at the medical faculty of the Imperial Kazan University. The first teacher of hygiene in Russia was Professor of Kazan University Arkady Ivanovich Yakobii. It was also clarified that regular hygiene teaching at the Saint Petersburg Imperial Medico-Surgical Academy was established in November 1865. Ivan Maksimovich Sorokin was the first hygiene teacher at the Academy and the first head of the hygiene department. Alexey Petrovich Dobroslavin, who was previously considered the first head of the hygiene department, actually became the second head of the corresponding department, starting teaching only in 1872.