Gurvich, Aleksandr Gavrilovich

(b Poltava, Russia, 27 September 1874: d. Moscow, U.S.S.R., 27 July 1954)

biology

Gurvich was the son of a notary, G. K. Gurvich: his elder brother, L. G. Gurvich, was a prominent specialist in petroleum chemistry. He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Munich in 1897 and from 1899 to 1901 was an assistant in the department of anatomy in the University of Strasbourg. From 1901 to 1905 he lived in Bern, where he did his early work on the histophysiology of kidney cells and studied mitoses in amphibian eggs that had been put through a centrifuge. In 1904 he published Morphologie und Biologie der Zelle

From 1907 to 1917 Gurvich was professor of anatomy and histology at the Higher Courses for Women in St. Petersburg, Atlas und Grundriss der Embryologie appeared in German, Spanish, and Russian between 1907 and 1909; Vorlesungen der allgemeinen Histologie was published in 1913. At the same time, in 1912, he began the investigations into the processes of morphogenesis that were to lead him to the theory of the biological field.

Gurvich served as professor of histology at the University of Simferopol (Crimea) from 1918 to 1924; he held the same position from 1924 to 1929 at the University of Moscow. He was head of the department of experimental biology of the Institute of Experimental Medicine in Leningrad from 1930 to 1942. In 1942 he returned to Moscow to assume the same post at the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine, which became the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1944; his own department became the Institute of Experimental Biology, with him as its director.

From 1948 until the end of his life Gurvich continued his experimental work at his home laboratory. He had begun his scientific work in histology, cytology, and embryology, with a later concentration on the problem of mitosis—particularly on the causes of cell division. The latter led him to the discovery of the resolving factor of mitosis—that is, of weak shortwave ultraviolet radiation, which he called mitogenetic rays. His researches in this field paved the way for further developments in molecular biology and resulted in establishment of the chain of processes occurring in cells after mitogenetic irradiation and the applicability of spectral analysis of mitogenetic rays (various fermentative processes with various spectral characteristics being the source of radiation).

Gurvich’s early researches on morphogenesis allowed him to establish that the arrangement of morphological structures—the regular movement of cells and change in their form in the process of developments—is governed by the character of the vector field. This became known as the theory of the biological field. He published seventeen monographs and more than 120 special works. His ideas were developed in the works of his wife, L. D. Gurvich, his daughter, A. A. Gurvich. S. J. Salkind, G. M. Frank, M. A. Baron, L.J. Blacher, and L. V. Belousov, among others.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gurvich’s publications include “Ùber Determination, Normierung und Zufall in der Ontogenese,” in Archiv för Entwicklungsmechanik der Organismen, 30 (1910). 133–193; “Ùber den Begriff des embryonalen Feldes,” ibid., 51 (1922), 383–415; “Die Natur des spezifischen Erregers der Zellteilung,” in Archiv für mikroskopische, Anatomie und Entwicklungsmechanik, 100 (1923), 11–40; Das Problem der Zelleilung physiologish betrachtet (Berlin, 1926): “Sur les rayons mitogénétiques et leur identité avec les rayons ultraviolets,” in Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances del’Académie des sciences, 184 (1921), 903–904, written with G. M. Frank; Die hisologischen Grundlagen der Biologie Jena, 1930); Die mitogencischen Strahung (Berlin, 1932; 2nd ed., Jena, 1959), written with L.D. Gurvich; and Teoria biologicheskogo polya (“The Theory of the Biological Field”; Moscow, 1944).

On Gurvich’s life and work, see L. V. Belousov, A. A. Gurvich, S. J. Salkind, and N. N. Kanneguiser, Aleksandr Gavrilouich Gurvich (1874–1954) (Moscow, 1970).

L. J. Blacher