1887–1951
✕ Death under torture
Kremlin cardiologist who became the first victim of Stalin's Doctors' Plot
He suffered twenty-nine heart attacks in custody, ten of them during interrogations in Ryumin's office.
Born into a prosperous Jewish merchant family in Minsk and educated in medicine in Germany, Etinger was a pioneering Soviet cardiologist. As a longtime consultant to the Kremlin medical administration, he treated Soviet and international communist leaders including Kirov, Ordzhonikidze, Dimitrov, and Togliatti, and was a pioneer in electrocardiographic diagnosis; in 1950 he was discussed as a possible Nobel Prize candidate. Arrested in November 1950 as the first victim of the Doctors' Plot, he was tortured by MGB investigator Ryumin and died in Lefortovo Prison in March 1951; Ryumin then used his death as the lever to accuse Minister Abakumov of covering up a conspiracy, expanding the case into a full-scale antisemitic campaign.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1913M.D., University of Berlin
- 1914–1917Military doctor, Imperial Russian Army field hospital
- 1918–1920Chief of a major military hospital, Red Army
- 1922–1932Assistant, then privat-docent, Internal Medicine, 1st Moscow University
- 1929–1950Consultant, Kremlin Medical Administration
- 1932–1949Chair of Internal Medicine, Pediatric Faculty, 2nd Moscow Medical Institute
- 1950–1951Arrested by MGB, died under torture in Lefortovo Prison
Related historical events
Electrocardiographic diagnosis and clinical research
Etinger pioneered research using electrocardiography to diagnose acute myocardial infarction and coronary thrombosis. In 1929 he published the first article in Soviet medical literature on electrocardiographic diagnosis of myocardial infarction, describing cases in which acute coronary thrombosis was diagnosed in living patients. During the 1930s he studied electrocardiographic changes in acute myocardial infarction and myocarditis, proposing that changes in the terminal part of the ventricular complex could indicate small-focal infarction or a recurrent heart attack. With his colleague Veniamin Nezlin, he investigated electrocardiographic patterns in rheumatic heart disease and described, between 1932 and 1937, dissociation with interference.
Etinger also studied the diagnosis and course of rheumatic fever and heart defects, as well as the clinical features of rheumatic peritonitis. He headed the therapy department of Yauza City Hospital from 1929 to 1933 and became chair of internal medicine at the pediatric faculty of the 2nd Moscow Medical Institute in 1932. He received the title of professor in 1935 and a doctorate in medicine in 1937, and led the same faculty’s department of faculty therapy from 1941 to 1949. In a 2015 history-of-medicine study, researchers characterized his electrocardiographic diagnostic work and clinical publications as pioneering contributions to Soviet cardiology and counted him among Moscow’s leading cardiology clinicians of the 1940s.