Michel Mirowski - Later Life

Later Life

In the mid 1980s, Mirowski developed multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood. When his medical condition became desperate, and fighting against the odds as usual, he insisted on receiving the most intensive chemotherapy. When the disease stopped responding, his oncologist raised the possibility of a bone marrow transplantation, then in experimental development for the treatment of myeloma. A near relative as donor would be needed. Did he have a brother? This would have been Abraham, lost in the Holocaust. Mirowski died on March 26, 1990 at the age of 65 years.

Though his work had been ridiculed for many years—someone described it as a “bomb inside the body”—and he was long unable to obtain grants to support the development of the defibrillator, the last 5 years of his life brought Mirowski both recognition and acclaim. Professional societies and leaders of academic medical institutions honored him. He received invitations to write more articles and give more lectures than he could accept. So he picked and chose, accommodating his friends and those who supported him in darker times. Often with his wife or children, he traveled where he wished since now he was welcome everywhere.

When he spoke overseas, Mirowski usually lectured in English, but he often discussed his papers during the question and answer period in the language of the country he was visiting. He spoke French, Hebrew, Polish, Russian, Spanish and Yiddish fluently, but he never learned Italian and refused to learn German.

Mirowski was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for co-inventing with Morton Mower the automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) in the 1960s after his mentor died of a heart arrhythmia. The Patent number is 4,202,340