The problem of initial stage of mass production of penicillin in the USSR

Abstract

The article analyzes the problems of initial stage of mass production of penicillin in the USSR on the basis of documents of the State archive of the Russian Federation. The analysis covered declassified documents of the funds of the Narkomzdrav of the USSR, the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the A. M. Gorky All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine (VIEM). The secret correspondence of the People's Commissar of Health Care with the Government, with the Head of the Department of Biochemistry of Microbes and experimental production laboratory of VIEM Z. V. Ermolieva, with Directors of plants for organization of production of penicillin is analyzed. The transcripts of meetings and orders of the People's Commissar of Health Care are considered. It is demonstrated that development of production facilities and provision of health care with antibiotics was an extremely difficult task. Its solution was complicated by many factors such as the inaccessibility of advanced methods of deep fermentation, general technological backwardness, organizational problems associated with specificity of management and public decision-making. It is established that during 1944 the main producer of penicillin was the laboratory of VIEM and serial production of penicillin at the Karpov enterprise and plant of endocrine drugs in Moscow began only in late 1944, and amount production was were extremily not enough. In this situation, in early 1945, G. A. Miterev, the People's Commissar of Health Care, raised the question of buying plants for the production of penicillin in the United States. However, the final decision was not taken by the government. The attempt to devote part of the resources of the Central Military Sanitary Department of the Red Army for ensuring public health with antibiotic failed. In 1945, enterprises of the People's Commissariat of Meat and Dairy Industry were involved in the production of penicillin. At all enterprises of the USSR in the end of 1945, production of antibiotic was carried out by surface fermentation and liquid penicillin was produced, except for the A. Mikoyan Moscow meat-packing plant, where the production of drug in dry form was established. The outdated technologies and limited scale of production determined lower productivity of enterprises, which did not allow to cover the needs of health care even approximately.