THE MEN WHO CHANGED THE WORLD OF CARDIAC SURGERY. IN MEMORY OF THE OUTSTANDING EXPERIMENTER VLADIMIR P. DEMIKHOV

Abstract

Vladimir P. Demikhov was born on July 5, 1916 near the village of Kuliki, Tsaritsyn province (now the Volgograd region of the Russian Federation) into a small peasant family. Father Pyotr died in 1919 in the Civil War, when his son was only 3 years old, and the boy practically did not know him. After the death of the head of the family, all the worries fell on his mother Dominika and grandfather Yakov. Thanks to their industriousness, diligence and love the Vladimir’s childhood, as well as his brother’s and sister’s proceeded serenely: they did not know the lack of attention and ate worthily in the hungry years for the country. Demikhov received his first professional education at the Stalingrad Factory School. Some time after he entered the Department of Animal Physiology at Voronezh State University. It was there that he conducted a series of experiments on the implantation of a «mechanical heart». The results obtained were so amazing that Vladimir received an offer to transfer to the capital. In the autumn of 1938, he became a 5th year student at the Biological Department of MSU, after which he was drafted into the army. There, Demikhov took a course of a young soldier, after which he was appointed a specialist in the pathoanatomical laboratory. In this capacity Vladimir went through the Great Patriotic War. Demobilization became the starting point of the scientific path, during which more than 20 schemes of transplantation of the heart and heart - lung complex, as well as the method of mammary coronary bypass grafting, were developed. The purpose of this work is to analyze the most significant experiments.