Born at St Petersburg in 1872, he was educated at the Imperial Military Medical Academy, graduated at the University of St Petersburg in 1896, and was appointed to the surgical clinic of the Academy. He was elected to the permanent staff in 1902, became an assistant professor in 1908, and professor of surgery in the Imperial Military Medical Academy in 1910. Oppel was one of the group of foreign surgeons elected to Honorary Fellowship at the time of the last International Medical Congress in London in 1913, but was not among those photographed on the steps of the College. He is believed to have died in Russia during the revolution. He wrote on a variety of surgical topics, including the collateral circulation, internal secretions, abdominal surgery, and the history of medicine. A copy of his *Report* on the work of his clinic for 1913, the year of his Fellowship, is in the College library.