Naum Gurvich

Naum Lazarevich Gurvich (Наум Лазаревич Гурвич) (April 15, 1905-1981) was a Soviet-Jewish cardiac physician, a pioneer in the development of defibrillators.

Naum Gurvich was born in the village of Timkovichi near Minsk, Belarus. Early successful experiments of successful defibrillation by the discharge of a capacitor performed on animals were reported by N. L. Gurvich and G. S. Yunyev in 1939. In 1947 their works were reported in western medical journals. Serial production of Gurvich's pulse defibrillator started in 1952, model ИД-1-ВЭИ (the abbreviation stands for "импульсный дефибриллятор 1, Всесоюзный электротехнический институт", "pulse defibrillator 1, All-Union Electrotechnical Institute; the device was manufactured by the electromechanical plant of the Institute). It is described in detail in Gurvich's 1957 book, Heart Fibrillation and Defibrillation.

In 1958, US senator Hubert H. Humphrey visited Nikita Khrushchev and among other things he visited the Moscow Institute of Reanimatology led by Vladimir Negovsky, where, among others, he met with Gurvich. Humphrey immediately recognized importance of reanimation research and after thar a number of American doctors visited Gurvich. At the same time, Humphrey worked on establishing of a federal program in the National Institute of Health in physiology and medicine, telling to the Congress: "Let’s compete with U.S.S.R. in research on reversibility of death".

In 1970 Gurvich was among the group awadred the USSR State Prize in science and tecnhnology "за предложение, разработку и внедрение в медицинскую практику ЭИТ аритмий сердца" (for the proposal, development and introduction into medical practice of electropulse therapy [ cardioversion ] of cardiac arhythmies.)