Based on the study of documents from the archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the N.F.Gamalei Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, literary materials, the biography of N.I.Latyshev has been substantially supplemented, disparate facts of his life have been clarified and brought together, inaccuracies made in other publications have been corrected. The stages and periods of the scientist's research activity are traced. The role of Pavlovsky in his formation and development is highlighted. The importance of repeated experiments with self-infection, which occupied an important place in the comprehension of NI, is noted. The Latvian nature of infectious diseases, the search for ways to combat them. The monograph «The Doctrine of cutaneous leishmaniasis» is defined as the pinnacle of literary scientific creativity of N.I.Latyshev. The practical activity of the scientist is characterized by significant achievements in decisive and skillful large-scale organizational and sanitary-preventive measures, in which N.I.Latyshev often acted as a pioneer, in the fight against the spread and elimination of large endemic foci of infectious diseases.