Eliaava

ELIAAVA Georgii Grigorevich (b. 1892), one of the prominent microbiologists of Georgia. In 1909, he entered the medical faculty of Novorossiysk University. In 1911, for participation in student unrest, he was subjected to three months' imprisonment and expelled from the university. He completed his medical education in Geneva. He began working in bacteriology in 1913 under Professor Christiani; from 1916 he headed the Trabzon, and then the Central laboratory of the Union of Cities in Tiflis. From 1921, he has been head of the Bacteriological Institute of Georgia, from 1926 - lecturer, and from 1929 - professor of the department of microbiology at Tiflis University. He worked for several years (1918, 1925-1927) at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. There he began joint work on bacteriophagy with d'Hérelle (1918). Eliaava's main works relate to the field of bacteriophage theory. Eliaava is a proponent of the hypothesis of the living nature of bacteriophage, and in a number of experimental works he has provided evidence of the assimilative capacity of the bacteriophage corpuscle and its adaptability. Together with Pozerski (Pasteur Institute in Paris), he established the specific effect of quinine compounds on bacteriophage, and together with d'Hérelle - the presence in bacteriophage culture of a soluble lysin independent of the living bacteriophage body. Eliaava authored the chapter on bacteriophagy in the French guide to microbiology, published under the editorship of Nattan-Larrier. It should also be noted Eliaava's systematic research on the so-called filterable forms of the tuberculosis bacillus, the reality of which he denies on the basis of experimental verification.