Antibiotic and poplar fluff gauze: discoveries of Soviet pharmacists during the Great Patriotic War

The Great Patriotic War became one of the most difficult trials for our country. In one day, June 22, 1941, the fate of millions of people changed.

In the first months and years of fascist aggression, many sectors of the USSR found themselves in an extremely difficult situation. Medicine and pharmaceuticals were no exception. Thus, the volume of production of medications and medicines by the end of 1941 fell by almost 90%.

Meanwhile, thanks to the prompt evacuation of chemical enterprises from the front-line cities, as well as the remarkable efforts of pharmacists, who were helped by students and just volunteers, the industry managed to keep afloat, and then bring it to acceptable levels.

At the same time, in such difficult times for the country, Soviet pharmacists managed to make a number of important discoveries that saved the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers of the Red Army and civilians of the USSR.

Undoubtedly, the most important of them was the creation of antibiotics based on available materials.

So, Professor Zinaida Ermolyeva and her group in 1942 brought out penicillin, and Georgy Gause and Maria Brazhnikova were able to bring out an even more valuable antibiotic - gramicidin, which was isolated from a bacterium found in soil near Moscow.

At the same time, Nikolay Krasilnikov and his group created actinomycin and streptomycin, obtained from soil fungi.

However, the discoveries of pharmacists during the Second World War were not limited to antibiotics alone. At the same time, perhaps one of the most unusual, but at the same time simple and indispensable means, was a substitute for gauze, which was obtained from processed poplar fluff.

In general, during the years of the Great Patriotic War, assistance was provided to about 22 million patients.

Moreover, according to some reports, 70% of the Red Army soldiers receiving treatment in our hospitals could return to service, while German doctors returned only 40% of the wounded.

Comments

[Buyan]

Glory to our ancestors, we are proud and try to match

[air wolf]

Yes, antibiotics have saved millions of lives, and our doctors are the golden legacy of the USSR, they all have health and well-being

[Podvodnik]

. antibiotics have saved millions of lives

Ours in the Second World War bought penicillin from amers for currency. They asked to sell a license for production - so the "allies" refused. Trade secrets and stuff like that. America is nothing to do with it. Here it is ..... (obscenely).

[Simple]

Quote: air wolf

Yes, antibiotics have saved millions of lives, and our doctors are the golden legacy of the USSR, they all have health and well-being

Many during the development and crippled.
I knew a man, he was allergic to penicillin, although he himself was not in the labor army. There were his parents. Passed down through the genes.

[rocket757]

What can I say ... our land is rich in heroes, geniuses and in general, THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE IS GREAT!!!
Russian is not even a nationality, it is a common spirit, aspiration, ideas, this is one common thing for all of us!

[Revolver]

Quote: rocket757

Russian is not even a nationality, it is a common spirit, aspiration, ideas, this is one common thing for all of us!

Yes, with exceptions.
An old joke from the time of the so-called. "stagnation". Modery, read the text before deleting, there is no kindling and was not meant to be. And in general, the first time I heard this was in the synagogue on Lermontovsky, where I went to buy matzah for myself and all interested relatives from the Jewish side (I was one of the few in my family with a car, and in winter I was not afraid to drive, perhaps that I was alone).

Traders and suppliers - җӥдӹ.
Engineers, doctors, lawyers are Jews.
Scientists, writers, artists, musicians - figures of the Soviet (now Russian) science and culture.

[Amateur]

These people had "Motherland" and "Idea".
And now only

[rocket757]

OUR PEOPLE do not forget about the Motherland even now ... and the rest later, when we deal with this scourge.

[UAZ 452]

So, Professor Zinaida Ermolyeva and her group in 1942 brought out penicillin, and Georgy Gause and Maria Brazhnikova were able to bring out an even more valuable antibiotic - gramicidin, which was isolated from a bacterium found in soil near Moscow.

A purely propaganda story - gramicidin turned out to be super-toxic, and was not used in practice, and we did not manage to get a workable technology for the production of penicillin, even using the methods of industrial espionage. It was exclusively imported during the war, for VIP patients, and domestic production began only after buying a license in the USA somewhere in the late 40s (I can mix up the dates - I read about this story for a long time).

Moreover, according to some reports, 70% of the Red Army soldiers receiving treatment in our hospitals could return to service, while German doctors returned only 40% of the wounded.

When I studied, there were still those teachers at the medical institute who found the war years. It was said that such beautiful statistics were obtained simply due to the fact that the Germans had better organized medical care on the battlefield, and especially the collection and evacuation of the wounded. And according to their statistics, anyone who was still alive when the orderly got to him was considered wounded, and for us, those who were taken alive to the first-aid post. Therefore, they reached the stages of medical evacuation (I don’t know what they called the analogue of our medical battalions), heavier ones, which we simply died on the battlefield, falling into the statistics of those killed. It is clear that both mortality and dismissal from military service among the lighter wounded are much less than among the severe ones. The wounded, similarly (in terms of severity) to those "extra" 30% that they had been dismissed from service, simply died on the battlefield with us.

[hipper]

Something someone again heard from someone and retold. Have you come across the memories of the Germans and their opinion about Soviet doctors? For example, under what indications did the Germans amputate limbs and how long Soviet doctors fought for the life and health of the wounded. Even with a different approach in the interpretation of wounded-killed, you need to compare the number of those who returned to duty after treatment. I think that on our side, not all scratches were registered as injuries. For Germans, this statistic may also differ. What does it change? There are a lot of examples of returning to the front after being wounded in the biographies of front-line soldiers. Whether our doctors worked better than the fascist ones by 10-20 or 30 percent is not important to me. This is an important contribution of Soviet science, education and economics to the cause of victory.

[UAZ 452]

Sorry, but I have more confidence in those of my teachers who, in their youth, were the very Soviet doctors you write about. They did not retell or hear anything - it was they themselves who worked there and then. And compared to what I heard from primary sources, neither the memories of the Germans, nor statistics (and we know how to "work" with it), nor even your authoritative opinion, are of much less interest to me.

[hipper]

First, my opinion is not authoritative. I'm not that far from medicine, but I'm not a doctor at all. There are different levels of reliability of sources. So, the recollection and retelling of someone's words is a source of very low reliability. Such sources can only work when there are no others at all, and then they should always be viewed critically. You need to understand who said it, to whom and why. The second case is that they are used as auxiliary when they can be compared with others. In your example, so far it sounds like a retelling of memories. I, and maybe you, do not know for sure whether your teacher was engaged in a special study of the problem. He could hear something the same way from someone, maybe not even understand it that way. We still know from your words that he is a doctor, fought and taught medicine. Did he study, both from the USSR and the Nazis, the statistics of returning to the front after being wounded from various hospitals (by distance and complexity of treatment), overall survival, how many were fired from the army due to injuries, how many were fired, but returned to production, what were the logistical capabilities of the parties, how did the country attack or defend itself? Were considered approaches to the organization of the treatment system? Have approaches to the organization of the entire system changed, if they did, how did this affect its effectiveness? Surely there are some other issues that need to be considered in order to give an objective comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of the two systems.

[UAZ 452]

In principle, the figure of the ratio of combat sanitary and irretrievable losses in the two armies could confirm or refute the reason I have given for the statistical difference in the outcomes of the treatment of the wounded of the Wehrmacht and the Red Army. It is clear that if the reason is the lack of assistance on the battlefield, the unsatisfactory organization of the collection and evacuation of the wounded, then there will be wonderful statistics on the survival of the wounded and their return to duty, but the ratio of those killed (and missing) and the wounded will be shifted towards irretrievable losses. But I didn’t come across these figures in one source, but to compare from different ones, when we actually have loss figures for different researchers differ by millions, the reliability will be at the half-finger-ceiling level.

[hipper]

I agree. I would also like to see such a study.

when we actually have loss figures for different researchers differ by millions -

what are you talking about? General losses? With 30-50-100 million? Well, there is a science to it. Of course, we don't know the exact numbers. But generally recognized among the experts who deal with this issue are 27 million of the population of the USSR. The combat losses of the USSR are approximately equal to the losses of the Nazis (Germany, Italy, Romania ...) on the eastern front.

[hipper]

Quote from Hipper

First, my opinion is not authoritative. I'm not that far from medicine, but I'm not a doctor at all. There are different levels of reliability of sources. So, the recollection and retelling of someone's words is a source of very low reliability. Such sources can only work when there are no others at all, and then they should always be viewed critically. You need to understand who said it, to whom and why. The second case is that they are used as auxiliary when they can be compared with others. In your example, so far it sounds like a retelling of memories. We, and maybe you, do not know for sure whether your teacher was engaged in a special study of the problem. He could hear something the same way from someone, maybe not even understand it that way. We still know from your words that he is a doctor, fought and taught medicine. Did he study, both from the USSR and the Nazis, the statistics of returning to the front after being wounded from various hospitals (by distance and complexity of treatment), overall survival, how many were fired from the army due to injuries, how many were fired, but returned to production, what were the logistical capabilities of the parties, how did the country attack or defend itself? Were considered approaches to the organization of the treatment system? Have approaches to the organization of the entire system changed, if they did, how did this affect its effectiveness? Surely there are some other issues that need to be considered in order to give an objective comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of the two systems.