EVALUATION OF TWO SOVIET MEDICAL BOOKS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00809A000600040147-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 20, 2011
• Sequence Number: 147
• Publication Date: May 14, 1953
• Content Type: REPORT

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CLASSIFICATION SECRETa
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
INFORMATION REPORT
COUNTRY JSSR
SUBJECT Evaluation of Two Soviet Medical. Books
PLACF.
ACQUIRED
DATE
ACQUIRED
REPORT
CD NO.
DATE DISTR./ May S3
NO OF PAGES 5
NO. OF ENCLS.
(LISTED BELOW)
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
two Soviet Medical books
Vydayu sh.hi es Issledovaniya Otechestvennykh Uchenykh
oz u telyakh Halyarii by V I Afanas'vev, V Ya Danilevskiy, I I Mechnikor,
D L Rosnaaovskiy, N A Sakharov, (Medgiz 1951); and Ocherki Ratsional'noy
Khimict Uii by I A Saseirskiy, (Medgiz 1951).)
'AR;' I - G eial Remarks on soviet Dlenical Literature
The value of any book in the opinion of the Soviet rilers depends not only on
the factual material it contains but also on its theoretical evaluation. Soviet
methods are deductiv,. and theory dominates in a way similar to that in which
theology formerly dominated and "theory" might be called the new Soviet theology.
Facts not supporting the theory which at any time is popular with the Soviet
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eve opment o Soviet medical theory within the general framework of dielectical
materialism. During the early 1920's the dominaa' postulate or theory was the
"social hygiene" theory and all medical acti'7ity was evaluated in terms of its
contribution to this field. In the 1930's this theory was replaced by new
theories of active treatment such as the use of omnipotent drugs.- One exa ie
of there Lheuries was that of nne ltulgarian physician
was supported by Moloto^ and his theory was therefore very popular. Eventually,
however, the theory became unpopular and he was himself executed. Immediately
prior to World War II there were two tkseo ies more or less vying with each other
for official approval. The first of these is Rperanski's, who said that all
vital processes both physiological and pathological are dependent upon the
status of the sub-cortical cerebral centers. Some parts of ranski' theory
were, of course, sound and his book was published in the US, in 1935.
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The second theory was that of Bogomolets
who s
id th
,
a
at priority iitl
n va processes belongs to the system of covrective tissue. Both these do
theories, which were partially supported by oundic
patrons in the Kremlin. -rimentel findings, found
2. Apsarenfily after World War II, Bogomolets was defeated in the war of theories
r.nd, of course, he died in 1946 or 1947. Nevertheless, Speranski's theory
underwent some radical changes,
calleii "Pavlov's It was eventual y replaced by a new dogma
Neurism". A very important meeting of the Soviet Academy
of Science was held in Moscow in 1950 and the new dogma was officially pro-
claimed and since that time everyone has had to follow its postulates. In
this connection it is very pEeuliar how the Soviet rulersadapted and to some
extent faked the world-renowned results of the valuable scientific activities
of Pavlov. One example of this is that they have ascribed. to Pavlov' state-
ments about the control of somatic functions in the body by psychic processes,
namely by conditioned reflexes, and that these reflexes can be artifically
established to conform to the conditions of the Communist society with resulting
transformations in the personality, adaptability and health of the people.
3. Another theory that was officially recognized was Iyasenko's which is an
exageration of Darwin's postulate concerned with the variability of animal
species. Lyssenko claimed that hereditary factors could be a'asily changed
and adapted to F,le demands of the socialist state.
4. Both the above theories are obligatory for any scientific researcher and every
sricntific book must have quotations from these-theories-in its-
of observed cart; explsnatiaus
5. Anothar'interesti
ng peculiarity ''at post-World War II Soviet medicine is
increased emphasis on the activities of native researchers. These are divided
into two ce :-oor:!es:- (a) scientists from r utionary times who are
now cxl=ed-?ie,:"astvenayy? scientists translated "fatherland's"
scient.istsy and b) scientists developed under the Soviet system. It should
be r=rmbered that pre-revolutionary Russian medicine-began to develop is the-
,addle of lase century, in other words, later than Western European medicine
.?ut appromeimately the same time as.US medicine. ?It made slow progress but
nevertheless it haA some achievements,, usually not very-well known outside
the Russian.espire, The resaone for this were the:]mnguage..barrier and the
-PC.ct that Russian medical mgaiines were not In other words it bad no ublici Popular and medancine, in number.
more advanced and had morpublicity-
traditions, used to look down one any u, which was
scient'"ic activity. any Rsae
Ma addittoa the old Russian_ scientists ireie.very' .
modest and as a result- theik'biokwardness may have been Overestimated. After
World War I there could be observed.'some.unsound, chauvinistic tendencies
especially in France and Girmany'as far as medicine is concerned: 'German
scientists, for examole, did not study the work of-French-scientists and vice
versa. British medicine was rather suspicious of a:y vork done on-the con-
tinent anti remained :,after aloof. All, however, refused to take any-notice
of Soviet medicine at all.
6. In the 1920's the Soviet rulers preferred to import " .ientists technicians
ideas and machines from capitalist Countries and cri icize' fL.; r-Russian
s'~itutLons as much as, Possible. This policy changed in the 19 0'.s in order
to Wipaqp the commoon j;~ople for car and the leaders -started to cultivate
patrevtmest~s. the Ascppaetiofg this policy they'began to point out that the
of old. Pbsaia, in every field including medicine,
were ccmaiderable and many pamphlets and nevapap.er articles were published con-
cerning medical scientists of the past.
ii - v hchi s Issledoveai Otechestvennykh *chenykh 0 Vozbuditelyakh
E
7'
we vn known eve background. information, much of which is_ of cmr
as much t do wi'U the form of the ^z Soviet medical
books l:ndrr dWcussion. This is particularly yrae of the first:
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Vydayuahchiyesya Issledovaaiya O:echeatvennykh Uchenykh 0 Vozbuditelyakh Mal ii.
(Distinguished Investigations of the Fatherland's Scientists on malaria Germs
This book can be divided into three parts. The last part is composed of excerpts
from original works dealing with the subject which were written and published in
pe-revolutionary time. Another section (Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6) is a historical
survey of investigations performed both in old Russia and in foreign countries in
this field. This section was itten by a competent woman author
named S G Vasina. The first ee n 01 e book (the preface, Chapter
Fig wel 1 1 were writtt-n by Another author named D N Zasukhin
in a aiscovery or tae ma r..a parasite was very important and is underestimated
in western countries. The original work of these scientists as presented in
this book is vary spectacular in this respect. Dr Zasukhin attempts in his
section to speculate on this underestimation. He states that Yrench, German
and British scientists of the 19th Century quoted Russian scientists very often
and that as far as the UK and.US are concerned, this interest in Russian work
persisted until shortly before World War I when such classical books on the
subject as those of Craig (US) and Rose (UK) appeared. At this time, Russian
literature was discussed rather thoroughly although not without some omissions.
In the enalagous books of Warshaw and Boyd, however; which appeared in the US
in 1949, nc mention is made of Soviet work. Zasukhin concludes that it will
surp_ise no one that "now, when the capitalists of the US and UK and some other
countries are making preparations for the new gangster war against the Soviet
Union and the people's democracies, ideological methods are used by them as
one of the forms of the preparation." pe also states that "capitalistic
scientists do everything possible to borrow and utilize all the valuable and
important contributions from the works of the old Russian scientists and at the
same time show that the contemporary science of medicine in the. USSR is based
merely on the achievements of the capitalistic scientists," and further "they
try to emphasize the inferiority of the Soviet people and its scientists. Of
course, the reactionary Tsarist rulers contributed a great deal-to the lack
of knowledge abroad of the works of the Russian scientists in the field of
malaria." He further states "even now international conceptions are popular
among Soviet scientists; they must be overcome," and finally "based on the
tremendous and ever increasing power of our country, the achievements of
scientists, taking into account the considerable experience of the past,
and armed with the most advanced theories of Marx, Engels Lenin rind Stalin,
Soviet ccientists and workers can be sure of the future. Ia contrast to this,
no progress in the fight against malaria can be posbible in capitalistic
countries as their rulers have. no interest in the condition of life of the
worker." These quotations reveal the true purpose of the book which-might
be described as a form of psychological warfare having as its goal the abandon-
ment by contemporary Soviet scientists of the admiration for the scientists of
the West. This attack takes several forms. It attempts to prove that to a--
large extent Weste eelenne is he*e nn pueeien Rc`hievem_ntR_ Tt atto."mts
to show that Western scientists have nothing but contempt for Soviet scientists.
9. Although the author of Oeherki'Batsional'noy Lhimioterspii is not a party man,
and he seems competent in his field, the general remarks made above are also,
to a certain extent, applicable to his book. It is very interesting for
?exampae to note that in the preface he says: "the conference of the Academy
of Science in 1950 vuich was devoted to the physislcgi l dc-ctr_.`e of
Pavlov helped the author in the understanding and discussion of some questions
of the'theo0y and practice of chemotherapy, However, the writer believes
the criticism of some of his explanations would be very helpful." He starts
his book with more or lean a hictory of she ernpy. He ets.tee that scientific
chemo-therapy is associated with advances in organic chemistry. For this reaein
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he mentions the names of a number' of distinguished chemists of pre-revolutionary
Russia, even though their activity probably was not closely connected with chemo-
therapy. hater on in-the book he emphasizes the significance of some of the
works of Romiovski and states that in 1936 Postovski synthesized sulfapyridtne
four months be ora Evans discovery. He further states that the history of
antibiotics should begin with the observations of the famous Russian clinicians
Mannassein and'Polotebnov. in 1868'-.].871 they examined the antibacterial
action of the mold penicillium and treated skin ulcers with mold with good
results: In 1904, he states, Tartakpvaki observed good results with the use
of penicillium glaucum on fowl typhus. These observations did not attract
any attention and were forgotten. The writer gives a very objective discussion
of Fle 'A work and the development of penicillin. He does not claim that
flea ng s work is based on work by the Russians named above.
10. He also mentions as being very important the investigations conducted by
Vino ki concerned with soil'bacteria and ptotista and their antagonism.
Ildlar investigations were the basis for the' discovery of tyrothryoine by
Dubois in the US in 1936, He states'that Krasilnikov established the anti-
bacterial action of A ctinomyces'and shortly'thereafter Waksman (US) discovered
streptomycin.
11. The style of this book is 'completely different from Zasukhin, being 'that of a
regular scientific work. Following the historical section, the author furnishes
a chapter dealing with general chemotherapy which is a very good, up-to-date
description of all known facts.. The Only 'peculiarity of'this chapter is that
the author furnishes i.n it many inappropriate quotations f-om-Pavlov. The next
Ihapter discusses contemporary treatment 'of malaria. It is worth noting that
Soviet medicine does not use quinine; probably because it has to be'imported
and is expensive. The author recommends a combination of bigumal (the Soviet
equivalent of paludrine), acrichin' (Soviet atatirin ), and plasmocyd (Soviet
Plaamochin). He ai-' recommends the follow3sd treatments
Disease Recommended Treatient
Leishmaniasis Preparations of antimony, namely stibbsan or suramin,.
Recurrertt fever , Either?novarsenol (neosalvarsan) or. penicillin.
Visceral:Lues The chapr concerned with this disease is written,
aenFioiea, however, that the Soviets have not 'only
the old `fashioned ieosal7arsan but also aaapi,arsen
'which 'they call sovarsen. 'Apparently penicillin is
used?iafi