Abstract
Since Eliava and d’Herelle introduced phage therapy to the USSR in the 1930s, its popularity has waxed and waned, but, unlike in the United States, it never fell out of use. Thanks to the duo’s earlier promotional efforts and speaking tours, phage therapy labs sprang up across the empire in the 1940s in such cities as Moscow; Gorky and Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan. Physicians administered bacteriophages orally, in liquid or tablet form; topically, for skin, eye and ear infections; by aerosol for respiratory infections and, on rare occasions, intravenously to treat blood infections.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Bacteriophages: Biology and Application, Elizabeth Kutter and Alexander Sulakvelidze, eds. Chapter: Bacteriophage Therapy in Humans, by Alexander Sulakvelidze and Elizabeth Kutter, pg. 400 (CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, 2004).
- 2.
Summers, William C. “Felix d’Herelle and the Origins of Molecular Biology,” pg. 163.
- 3.
Summers, 170.
- 4.
Summers, 171.
- 5.
Pokrovskaya, M.P.; Kaganova, L. C.; Morozenko, M. A.; Bulgakova, A. G; Skatchenko, E. E. Letchenye Ran Bakteriofagom. [The cleaning of wounds using bacteriophage], Chief Military-Medical Administration of the Red Army, Government Publishing House of Medical Literature ‘Medgiz’. Moscow. 1942.
- 6.
Mudd, Stuart, “Recent Observations on Programs For Medicine and National Health in the USSR. Part Two. American Review of Soviet Medicine, vol. 5, 1947, pg. 74 and 75.
- 7.
Bickel, Lennard. “Rise Up To Life: A biography of Howard Walter Florey who made penicillin and gave it to the world.” Charles Scribner’s Sons. New York. 1973. Pg. 212.
- 8.
Savitskii, A. V. “Antibiotics – 25 Years of Science and Production in the USSR.” Pharmaceutical Chemistry Journal. Vol. 1, No. 10. 1967. pg. 571.
- 9.
A. V. Savitskii, Antibiotics: 25 Years of Science and Production in the USSR, Pharmaceutical Chemistry Journal. Vol 1, No. 10, October, 1967.
- 10.
Dreifuss, Jean-Jacques; Tikhonov, Natalia. “The intersection of the personal and academic history: Lina Stern (1878–1968).” Paper presented at The Global and the Local: The History of Science and the Cultural Integration of Europe. Proceedings of the 2nd ICESHS (Cracow, Poland, September 6–9, 2006)/Ed. By M. Kokowski.
- 11.
Author interview with Mark Field, an expert on Soviet socialized medicine at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, 8/19/07.
- 12.
“Inside Russian Medicine: An American Doctor’s First-Hand Report,” by Nicholas A. Petroff, Everest House Publishers, New York, pg. 128, 1981.
- 13.
Inside Russian Mecine, pg. 119.
- 14.
Shrayer, David. “Staphylococcal Disease in the Soviet Union: Epidemiology and Response to a National Epidemic,”Delphic Associates Inc. pg. 22 and 23.
- 15.
“The Inventory of Antibiotics in Russian Home Medicine Cabinets,” L. S. Stratchounski et al. August 2003, electronically published by Clinical Infectious Diseases 2003; 37: 498–505.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kuchment, A. (2012). ‘They’re Not a Panacea:’ Phage Therapy in the Soviet Union and Georgia. In: The Forgotten Cure. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0251-0_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0251-0_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-0250-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-0251-0
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)