[The short-arm centrifuge: history and possible uses in cosmonautics and health care services].

The review has the objective to analyze applicability of short-radius centrifuges (SAC) in clinical practice. Attempts to treat with centrifuges were made already in the XVIIIth century by E. Darwin (1794) and then E. Horn (1818). Positive results were reported but without particulars of the therapeutic courses. Interest in this method was rekindled by initiation of investigations of the centrifuge as a means to counteract the negative effects of microgravity during manned flights to space. The all-round studies of SAC powers at the Institute for Biomedical Problems attested its efficiency in prevention and therapy of the human body deconditioning brought on by simulated microgravity (bed rest, water immersion), in the 80s the method was tested on patients affected with leg ischemi, and complicated reparation of bone fractures. Collaboration of IBMP investigators with clinical doctors (1987) and a series of dedicated investigations (2000) favoured the view that SAC can be successfully used to prevent and treat blood supply disturbances in legs.