Levon Orbeli

Levon Abgari Orbeli was an Armenian physiologist, a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (from 1935) and its vice-president in 1942–1946, and a member of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences (from 1944) and the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR (from 1943). He was born in Tsaghkadzor. He graduated from the Military Medical Academy in St Petersburg (1904) and was a pupil of I. P. Pavlov. In 1943–1950 he headed the Military Medical Academy, in 1936–1950 the Institute of Physiology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and in 1950 he founded and led the Institute of Evolutionary Physiology of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

He is regarded as the founder of evolutionary physiology. He studied the physiology of digestion and blood circulation and the functions of the sympathetic nervous system and the cerebellum, and contributed to the development of aviation physiology and medicine. Hero of Socialist Labour (1945), USSR State Prize laureate (1941).

In the photograph he wears a double-breasted military greatcoat and a peaked cap; he has a white beard and glasses and holds gloves in his hand.