The Soviet Military Microbiologists’ Contribution to the Victory in the Great Patriotic War

Highlights

 Branch of the 48 Central Research Institute (Kirov) of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation was one of the leading research institutions in the Soviet Union that dealt with dangerous and hazardоus contagious diseases and tried to protect the Red Army of Workers and Peasants troops from the biological weapons used by the enemy during the Great Patriotic War.

 Relevance. Scientific publications and papers that are related to epidemic prosperity state at the front line and rear areas the Great Patriotic War neglect the importance of military microbiologists. That is unfair because they promptly developed product manufacturing procedures that permitted to create vaccines against dangerous and particularly dangerous infections. They also produced first antibiotics in the Soviet Union.

 The purpose of the study is to inform about the contribution of the Soviet military microbiologists to the Victory in the Great Patriotic War.

 Study base sources. The authors have analyzed the documents of the Central State Archive of the Kirov region, disclosed archive records of the 48 Central Research Institute (Kirov) of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, as well as publications, available in Russian e-library database.

 Methods. The authors have resorted to common scientific generalization methods and chronological and comparative methods during the study. They also have analyzed archive documents and have provided an evaluation of the described events from a historical point of view.

 Results. The authors of this article have detected a sequence of events that led to relocation of a military scientific institution during the Great Patriotic War (the Sanitary engineering institution of the Red Army of Workers and Peasants) was relocated from Gorodomlya Island to Kirov. The authors have studied the functioning of this institution in this period. The experts of this institution developed unique product manufacturing procedures for bacteriophages and antibiotics (penicillin and streptomycin); created second to none dry live vaccines (against tularemia, plague and brucellosis). All inventions were immediately introduced to troops and saved thousands of Soviet soldiers. When the war ended, all these inventions were handed to the Ministry of Health of the Soviet Union.

 Conclusions. The Soviet military microbiologists made a great breakthrough in terms of manufacturing procedures of bacterial and fungi cultivation, developed an unique equipment that permitted to use raw materials available in the USSR. These components were crucial for the development of key antibiotics of that time penicillin and streptomycin. The contribution of the Soviet military microbiologists to the development of vaccines against dangerous pathogenes and potential biological weapon agents is priceless. The director of the Main Military Medical Department of the Red Army colonel general of the Medical Corps E.I. Smirnov was the leader who contributed greatly to the development of military microbiology.

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