Konstantin Davidovich Eristavi

Born Jan. 22 (Feb. 3), 1889, in the village of Salominao, now the village of Kirovi, Vani Raion, Georgian SSR; died Mar. 12, 1975, in Tbilisi. Soviet surgeon. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR (1950). Hero of Socialist Labor (1966). Member of the CPSU from 1940.

Eristavi graduated from the medical school of the University of Iur’ev (Tartu) in 1914. He became a professor and chairman of the departments of general, faculty, and hospital surgery at the Tbilisi Medical Institute in 1929 and served as rector of the institute from 1941 to 1950. He served as director of the Institute of Blood Transfusion of the Ministry of Health of the Georgian SSR from 1948 to 1950 and director of the Institute of Experimental and Clinical Surgery of the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR from 1950 to 1974.

Eristavi’s main works dealt with the surgical treatment of diseases of the abdominal organs, lungs, heart, and blood vessels and with infected wounds and burns. Eristavi was an honorary member of the Czechoslovak Purkinje Medical Society (1961) and a member of the International Society of Surgery (1960). He was a member of the Central Executive Committee of Transcaucasia from 1931 to 1937 and deputy to the first to fifth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR. Eristavi was awarded three Orders of Lenin, three other orders, and several medals.