Russian surgeon vladimir demikhov biography

Circumstances and effects of the war posed a big challenge for the otherwise honest Demikhov. While recalling his experiences of the war to his beloved daughter, Demikhov mentioned that the stress of the war zone was so intense that at times soldiers would shoot themselves so as to take refuge at the hospital. As such act was taken as a war crime and invited death punishment, he used to be consulted as a forensic expert.

Although Demikhov was fully aware of the consequence that he may face for his lies, he tried his level best to save lives of as many soldiers as possible by weakening the evidences that otherwise would have proved their injuries as self-inflicted. Demikhov was in Berlin during the capitulation of Germany. He travelled along with his unit from Berlin to China inand returned to Moscow at the end of the year.

The first successful procedure of intrathoracic transplantations of a heart and a lung, and also the heart and lungs together in a mammal was conducted by him while experimenting with dogs in Success of his procedure was palpable for the first time on June 30 that year when a dog survived heterotopic heart—lung transplantation for 9. His work was considered unethical by a review committee of the Soviet Ministry of Health in the s, and he was directed to stop his researches, but the director of the Institute of Surgery, Alexander V.

Vishnevsky, surgeon-in-charge of the Soviet armed forces, applied his own power to allow Demikhov to continue with research works. The design of heart—lung preparation of Demikhov was based on the first heart-lung preparation introduced by I. Pavlov and N. Chistovich in A more improved and complex heart—lung preparation was elucidated by Knowlton and Starling in This preparation was simplified and applied by Demikhov in the early s.

He said that when human heart and lungs transplantation will be possible in future, application of this preparation will facilitate transfer of the organ in a functioning state. On July 29,he conducted the first successful coronary bypass surgery on a dog. Although such experimental work of Demikhov was initially considered impractical and eccentric by many, V.

Kolesov conducted further experiments in Leningrad and emerged as the first to conduct successful coronary bypasses.

Russian surgeon vladimir demikhov biography: A pioneer of transplantation ahead of

Head transplantation of a canine was conducted by Demikhov in which arguably emerged as the most controversial experimental surgery of the 20th century. News of such pioneering surgery spread like fire across the globe creating both controversy and indignation for the scientist. The clinical application of head transplantation was questioned while many tagged Demikhov as a quack.

Although he made pioneering transplantation experiments of different organs that paved way for a new era on the field, Demikhov is generally recalled as a legendary scientist who performed dog head transplants resulting in two-headed dogs. In French surgeon Dr. Alexis Carrel and his partner, Dr. Charles Guthrie, an American physiologist, performed the same experiment that Vladimir Demikhov would attempt forty years later.

The two men managed to create a two-headed dog that seemed like a successful operation, but the animals degraded rapidly and were euthanized after several hours of declining health. Brodyaga was to be the host dog, and Shavka was to be the secondary head and neck. The last step was securing the dogs at the vertebrae using plastic string.

The procedure took three and a half hours from start to finish, and both heads could hear, see, smell, and swallow. Shavka and Brodyaga survived four days and the cause of death was determined to be a vein in their shared neck which was damaged during the procedure. The dog was previously on tour in Germany from but has returned to Riga, where you can see it on display today.

American doctors came to learn from Demikhov, and bythe general consensus of the U. S medical community was that the two-headed dogs were not nonsense but something that showed the promise of the success of live organ transplantation. Vladimir Demikhov died at 82 from an aneurysm on November 22,in obscurity on the outskirts of Moscow. Top Image: The last two headed dog transplant performed by Vladimir Demikhov in in east Germany.

Stolf, N. The Brazilian Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery 32, 5.

Russian surgeon vladimir demikhov biography: Vladimir Petrovich Demikhov was a

Matskeplishivili, S. Vladimir Petrovich Demikhov : A pioneer of transplantation ahead of his time, who lived out the end of his life as an unknown in poor circumstances. European Society of Cardiology. European Heart Journal 38, Konstantinov, I. National Library of Medicine. Texas Heart Institute Journal 36,5. Lauren Dillon is a freelance writer with experience working in museums, historical societies, and archives.

Russian surgeon vladimir demikhov biography: Vladimir P. Demikhov (–)

She loves history, true crime, mythology, and anything strange and unusual. He joined the Sklifosovsky Institute of Emergency Medicine inwhere he remained until his retirement in Demikhov's ideas were initially met with a huge degree of skepticism but he maintained a calm demeanor and was able to field all questions that were thrown at him by his critics.

Bythe opinion of the American medical community had shifted and they gradually warmed to the idea of one day successfully transplanting human organs. One particular admirer of his work was South African cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnardwho became convinced through studying Demikhov's experiments that human heart transplantation was a real possibility.

Barnard twice visited Demikhov's laboratory in Moscow, in andand inspired by his observations there, he successfully performed the world's first heart transplant operation from one person to another in He would later credit Demikhov's earlier experiments for making all this possible, calling him "[the] father of heart and lung transplantation".

Demikhov is perhaps most famous for his two-headed dog experiments. All of the surgical procedures listed above were carried out on warm-blooded animals non-human. Between andhe also assembled the world's first collection of living human organs for surgical use. Demikhov died at the age of 82 on November 22,as the result of an aneurysmin his small apartment on the outskirts of Moscow.

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. Soviet organ transplantation pioneer. In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customsthe patronymic is Petrovich and the family name is Demikhov. MoscowRussian Federation.

Early life [ edit ]. Career [ edit ]. Scientific contribution [ edit ].

Russian surgeon vladimir demikhov biography: Vladimir Petrovich Demikhov was a

Death [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. European Heart Journal. Oxford University Press : — PMID January 17, Retrieved December 16, Acta Neurochirurgica. ISSN