Gavril Abramovich Ilizarov was a Soviet physician, who became famous for inventing the Ilizarov apparatus for lengthening limb bones. Ilizarov was born in Poland to a Jewish family from the Russian Empire. Shortly after his birth the family moved to Azerbaijan, where he grew up. He then went on to graduate from Derbent Medical Rabfac (an educational establishment set up to prepare workers and peasants for higher education) and also Crimea Medical School.
In 1944 he was sent to a rural hospital in Siberia, where he worked as a general practitioner. …