The club served to coordinate student activities and organize assistance for political exiles in Siberia.

In 1878 he finished his studies at the University, and began working as a doctor in Skopinsky County, Ryazan province.

In 1884 Elpatyevsky was arrested for distributing illegal literature, and sentenced to exile in Eastern Siberia.

Later he was granted the right to move freely throughout the countryside to fight the epidemics of diphtheria and scarlet fever in Angara and measles in Turukhansk.

In April, 1886 a Chelyabinsk merchant named Balakshin asked Governor Pedashenko if Elpatyevsky could be allowed to accompany him to Lake Shira.

Their scientific observations about the healing properties of the water of Lake Shira were outlined in Elpatyevsky's report at a meeting of the Yenisei Province Society of Physicians.

In the late 1890s he settled in Yalta, where he often met with Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov, whom he treated for tuberculosis.

He didn't share some of their ideas and, for this reason, became one of the creators of the Labour Popular Socialist Party.