[About the introduction the criteria of brain death in Poland in 1984]

Significant recovery of discussion about the need for the formulation of criteria of death was provoked due to the progress of medicine. Development of anaesthesiology and intensive therapy, introduction of new resuscitation techniques and devices, which are increasingly better able to maintain and sometimes even replace functions of the respiratory or cardiovascular system, which are essential for the survival meant that existing for centuries, socially accepted classical criteria of death, based on cessation of breath and circulation, are no longer sufficient. The criteria of brain death developed by the Ad Hoc Committee - 12-experts commission at Harvard University, published in Journal of American Medical Association in August 1968 and were the breaking point. The concept has been adopted and accepted by society in many countries soon, while in Poland the process of formulating and introduction of criteria for brain death took much more time. Based on the available literature and preserved archival materials, this article describing the process of development of new death criteria, acceptance by the National Team of Specialists and publication in 1984 the announcement by the Minister of Health and Social Welfare about the criteria of brain death.