Zinaid Ermolieva was an outstanding representative of Soviet medicine. She initiated numerous advanced studies, thanks to which modern Russian microbiology appeared.
early years
Zinaida Vissarionovna Ermolyeva was born in 1898 in Frolov, one of the many farms of the Don Don Army area. She graduated from school in Novocherkassk. When it came time to choose a profession, the girl decided that her vocation was medicine. Ermolyeva entered the Don University in Rostov-on-Don. Already in her youth, the student showed outstanding traits of her character. She was distinguished by determination, hard work, a thirst for knowledge and a strong will. Much later, already becoming a famous scientist, Zinaida Vissarionovna Ermolieva recalled how she loved to sneak into the laboratory secretly at the university even before it was opened, to fiddle with the flasks for an additional hour or two.
The student’s main passion immediately became microbiology. It was to her that Zinaida Vissarionovna Ermolyeva devoted her entire conscious life. After graduating from university, she remained in a higher educational institution as an assistant in the Department of Microbiology. Especially a lot of specialist paid attention to the study of pathogens. Just then, in the 20s of the 20th century, new disciplines devoted to these creatures appeared intensively. Since Zinaida Vissarionovna was one of the first to occupy this professional niche in the Soviet Union , her name has always been associated with new and sometimes revolutionary discoveries.
Cholera research
In 1922, an outbreak of cholera occurred in Rostov-on-Don. Due to the unpreparedness of the authorities and the population, it soon turned into an epidemic. For Ermolieva, it is time to study the disease not in test tubes, but on the streets of his city. Science then did not know much about cholera. The causative agent was known - the vibrio of cholera. However, there were other bacteria similar to it, but never studied by scientists to the end.
It was with these microbes that Zinaida Vissarionovna Ermolyeva worked for a long time. Trying to understand the effect of prototypes on the human body, she took a huge risk. Ermolieva herself infected herself in order to conduct a valuable experiment for science. The experiment was a success. It has been proven that bacteria related to vibrios mutate in the human body and become life threatening.
Moving to Moscow
The main goal of the experiments of Ermolieva and her colleagues was a vaccine that could protect the population from a deadly epidemic. Cholera-causing bacteria have been tested for resistance to many substances. After lengthy and time-consuming tests, Yermolyeva Zinaida Vissarionovna proved that it is enough to chlorinate water to prevent the population. The results of her scientific work formed the basis of new sanitary standards, which soon became mandatory for the whole country.
In the mid-20s, already being known, the microbiologist moved to Moscow, where he heads one of the departments at the Biochemical Institute at the People's Commissariat of Health of the RSFSR. Ermolieva and her team are working on the study of microbes, including those same cholera vibrios. The researcher discovered a new subspecies of this microorganism. The pathogen differed from its neighbors in that it could glow in pitch darkness. When the international scientific community got acquainted with the results of the work of Ermolyeva, it was decided to name this species by her name.
International fame
In 1925, the first specialized Soviet laboratory for the study of microbial biochemistry appeared. The founder and inspirer of this unique institution was Zinaida Vissarionovna Ermolyeva. Photos of the researcher began to constantly fall into foreign scientific journals. Her articles were published in several countries (on microbiology, epidemiology, etc.).
Then Ermolyeva began to deal with toxins a lot. In the Soviet Union, this phenomenon was studied by loners. To exchange invaluable experience, the woman began to travel abroad on business trips, including to France and Germany. In this regard, she devoted all her free time (which was very small) to foreign languages. In 1928, Ermolyeva visited the Louis Pasteur Institute of Microbiology in Paris. Particularly fruitful was the joint work of Zinaida Vissarionovna with her German colleagues.
In Central Asia
Towards the end of the 1930s, several large Soviet cholera control specialists appeared. The protagonist of this group was Ermolyeva Zinaida Vissarionovna. Because of this, the woman’s biography was full of various dangerous business trips.
In 1939, the cholera epidemic began in Afghanistan. The Soviet authorities began organizing preventive measures so that the infection did not get into the Central Asian socialist republics. A working group was sent to Tashkent, led by Yermoliev Zinaida Vissarionovna. Children and adults, residents of large cities and distant villages, were all at risk of infection. They were helped by a drug developed by Ermolieva. Also in Uzbekistan, a new testing system for the presence of a virus in the body has been tested.
Working at the Tashkent Institute, Zinaida Vissarionovna, among other things, received a new drug that combined vaccines for several types of diseases at once. The medicine fought cholera, diphtheria and typhoid.
Lysozyme
In the 30s, studies of lysozyme were conducted in the Soviet Union, led by Zinaida Vissarionovna Yermolyeva. The contribution to the microbiology of this woman was supplemented by the receipt of another important drug. It was a lysozyme enzyme that was started to be used in the food industry as a preservative and in medicine as an antiseptic.
On this scientific path, Ermolyeva completed the work of her predecessors. As early as 1909, Pavel Laschenkov discovered the substance lysozyme. A scientist found it in a chicken egg and found that it could stop the spread of germs. Lysozyme was later found in human glands and tissues. However, all these discoveries have not found practical application.
New discoveries
For many years, biologists have been trying to figure out the nature of the body's defense against bacteria. The study of lysozyme could open the veil of secrecy over this biological mystery. Zinaida Vissarionovna Ermolieva took up the study of the substance together with her wards. The merits of the microbiologist were already numerous, but she did not rest on her laurels, but continued to work hard and to the benefit of all science.
Ermolyeva is the author of the technology for the isolation of lysozyme. Moreover, she was the first to be able to concentrate it in order to successfully use it in practice in medicine. Having determined the chemical nature of the substance, the researcher was able to detect lysozyme in various crops - horseradish, radish, etc. This discovery explained the effectiveness of various folk remedies for diseases and diseases.
Professor and Doctor of Science
Lysozyme has been the subject of research by Yermolieva throughout her life, starting in the 30s. In 1970, her laboratory was able to synthesize this substance in crystalline form. After that, lysozyme began to be used in ophthalmology, surgery, pediatrics and other fields.
Lysozyme was found in other applications in the food and agricultural industries. They began to use it as a preservative for some perishable products, for example, caviar. The state appreciated the work of such a fruitful specialist as Yermolyeva Zinaida Vissarionovna. The awards received by the microbiologist (Stalin Prize, the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor) were a reflection of the importance of her work. In addition, the researcher in 1935 became a doctor of sciences, and in 1939 a professor.
Help to Stalingrad
During the Great Patriotic War, the country especially needed such specialists as Zinaida Vissarionovna Ermolyeva. The “parents” of Soviet microbiology and epidemiology were sent to Stalingrad to overcome the wave of cholera in the besieged city. A complex operation to transfer scientists to the frontline was carried out due to the fact that it was impossible to work around the necessary prophylactic means to local residents. The only hope of the Stalingraders was to establish the production of drugs in the city itself.
Despite all the dangers associated with street fighting, bombing and other horrors of war, Zinaida Yermolyeva, together with her team, organized a mass vaccination of the population. When the production was established, the coveted remedy began to take 50 thousand people a day. Thanks to the operational work of microbiologists and doctors, we managed to avoid a mass epidemic in the city tormented by the Wehrmacht.
Antibiotic search
While in Stalingrad and watching the wounded soldiers of the Red Army, Zinaida Yermolyeva drew attention to the fact that most of the deceased died not because of the wounds themselves, but because of blood poisoning and related complications. Then her laboratory began research on the solution to this problem.
Ermolyeva in her research was based on the discovery of Alexander Fleming. In 1929, he received a substance fundamentally new to medicine - penicillin. This antibiotic, by its nature related to mold fungi, has become a real revolution in pharmacology. Fleming was never able to make its discovery mass accessible, since the strain was extremely unstable. Now this task was set by Ermoliev Zinaida Vissarionovna. Penicillin could become the basis of a universal cure for diseases caused by streptococci and staphylococci.
The emergence of Soviet penicillin
The first samples of domestic penicillin appeared in 1942. The important thing was that only Soviet raw materials were used for its synthesis. A few months later, Howard Flory came to the USSR. This scientist was a professor at Oxford University, who managed to achieve similar success in the United States.
The British brought to Moscow their own samples of medicine for comparison. The analysis showed that penicillin Ermolieva acted much more efficiently. Despite this, in 1945, the Nobel Committee awarded the Howard Chlorie Prize in Physiology and Medicine.
At the front
Although the Great Patriotic War was already at its final stage, thousands of Soviet soldiers still needed emergency assistance. At the end of 1944, Ermoliev, along with the great surgeon Nikolai Burdenko, went to the front to test the drug in combat conditions. Soviet penicillin passed the decisive test - the medicine really helped the wounded Red Army soldiers. After that, the industrial production of the drug began.
All six months at the front, Professor Ermolieva had to work in extreme conditions. Her laboratory was in the basement, and all the equipment was hastily assembled. Despite the unusual environment, the outstanding microbiologist coped with her task.
After the war
In the postwar years, Zinaida Yermolyeva began to represent the Soviet Union in the World Health Organization. The choice fell on her not by chance. She knew languages well, and the number of her services to domestic medicine was outstanding. In 1956, the epidemiologist led the WHO Committee on Antibiotics. At this post, Zinaida Ermolyeva remained until the end of her life.
In the 50-60s, she resumed her journalistic activities, interrupted by the war. In total, over a long career, Ermolyeva became the author of more than 500 scientific papers. Then she became famous throughout the country thanks to Benjamin Kaverin. The Soviet writer used the biography of Zinaida Vissarionovna as a prototype of the life story of the main heroine of her novel “Open Book”. It was published in parts in literary magazines in 1948-1956.
Kaverin has known Yermolyev personally since 1928. They were brought together by the brother of the writer - Lev Zilber, who was a researcher in the field of virology and oncology. The scientist has long been a colleague of Ermolyeva. During the Stalinist repressions, Zilber ended up in a camp. At a meeting with Zinaida Vissarionovna, he handed over to her a secret manuscript of his scientific work, which the researcher continued right in the Gulag. This episode, like many others, demonstrates tremendous courage and devotion to the vocation of Ermolyeva. Zinaida Vissarionovna continued to work and research until her very end. She died on December 2, 1974, leaving a great scientific legacy to posterity.