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. In 1946 he organised a workshop for the development of medical instruments, in order to treat the injured soldiers returning from the war. It was during this time that he began working on his earliest prototypes of what would become the Ilizarov External Fixator (a metal framework consisting of rings, threaded rods and pins).

Ilizarov discovered that by carefully severing a bone without severing the periosteum, it was possible to separate the two halves and then fix them back in place using his apparatus. His framework was put in place with pins through the bone, and worked by separating the bone by a small amount over a period of time. As the framework was adjusted the bone would then re-grow to fill the gap, resulting in the lengthening of the limb.

Despite his successes, his method was not widely accepted in the Soviet Union until he successfully treated Valery Brumel (the Soviet Olympic Gold Medallist High Jumper in the 1964 games), who had a non-union and shortening of the lower extremity. Following acceptance in the USSR the method was introduced to the rest of the world, and is still used today.

The Russian Ilizarov Scientific Centre for Restorative Traumatology and Orthopaedics is now the leading hospital in the world that uses his apparatus to lengthen or reshape bones. Every year over 9000 people from all countries and age groups receive treatment.

Ilizarov died in 1992, at the age of 71. His accomplishments were extraordinary considering where he lived and worked. He developed a whole new field of biology and clinical orthopaedics, and his methods have helped innumerable patients around the world.