14 Facts About Vladimir Demikhov

Vladimir Demikhov is well known for his dog head transplants, which he conducted during the 1950s, resulting in two-headed dogs.

Vladimir Demikhov began to show an interest in the mammalian circulatory system as a teenager, and is known to have been inspired by Pavlov's experimental work with dogs.

In 1934, Vladimir Demikhov began studying at the Voronezh State University, where in 1937 he created the world's first artificial heart and successfully implanted it into a dog.

Vladimir Demikhov then transferred to the Biology Faculty of Moscow State University, where he wrote his first scientific work, and graduated with honors in August 1940.

Vladimir Demikhov returned home at the end of the war with a number of medals and a military decoration.

Vladimir Demikhov married Liya Nikolayevna in August 1946, and their daughter Olga was born in July 1947.

Vladimir Demikhov spent the 1950s carrying out research into organ transplantation surgery, continuously improving his experimental techniques.

Vladimir Demikhov successfully performed an isolated orthotopic heart transplantation in a dog in 1951.

Vladimir Demikhov developed the principles of myocardial revascularization, which enabled him to perform the first experimental coronary artery bypass operation.

Vladimir Demikhov coined the word "transplantology", meaning organ transplantation, in his 1960 monograph Experimental Transplantation of Vital Organs, for which he received his doctoral degree.

Vladimir Demikhov joined the Sklifosovsky Institute of Emergency Medicine in 1960, where he remained until his retirement in 1986.

Vladimir 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.

One particular admirer of his work was South African cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard, who became convinced through studying Vladimir Demikhov's experiments that human heart transplantation was a real possibility.

Vladimir Demikhov is perhaps most famous for his two-headed dog experiments.