Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00a microorganism that causes diseases in
00:00:031883 was discovered by the German
00:00:07scientist Robert Koch, he named
00:00:10it comma cholera
00:00:13because of its curved shape.
00:00:17Mainly, people suffer from cholera. The infection
00:00:20affects everyone without exception, but depending
00:00:23on immunity, the disease proceeds
00:00:26differently. To prevent the spread
00:00:30of infection, it is extremely important to identify it in time, isolate
00:00:34the sick person and start their
00:00:37treatment.
00:00:40To combat cholera, in July 1942,
00:00:43microbiologist Zinaida Yermolyeva flew from Moscow. There was no
00:00:47time to pack, so the professor took only the most
00:00:50necessary diagnostic drugs and serums. To
00:00:53Stalingrad, Yermolyeva went by military transport
00:00:57aircraft. The front line then passed nearby.
00:01:00cities, in order not to allow the expansion
00:01:03of the epidemic, it was necessary to act very quickly,
00:01:06so immediately upon arrival at 2:00 at night, an emergency
00:01:10commission was convened headed by the Deputy
00:01:14People's Commissar of Health of the USSR. It was
00:01:17decided to chlorinate water in all available
00:01:21sources, and Zinaida Yermolyeva
00:01:24insisted that everyone without exception in Stalingrad, and
00:01:28that's more than... people
00:01:31should be given cholera bacteriophage, it
00:01:34kills the bacteria
00:01:36pathogens.
00:01:43Under normal circumstances, cholera is treated symptomatically,
00:01:47because the main symptom is dehydration, so
00:01:50patients are shown copious intravenous infusion
00:01:53of hypertonic saline heated to 40°
00:01:57with a volume of up to 2 liters. The procedure is performed two or three times a
00:02:00day. In special cases, such as the risk of an epidemic,
00:02:04infected people are given cholera bacteriophage to drink. This
00:02:07is a virus that finds a harmful bacterium, like a syringe,
00:02:11injects its DNA into it, neutralizes it, and
00:02:14then turns it into a factory for producing hundreds of new
00:02:18viruses that destroy the pathogens
00:02:20of cholera.
00:02:24As soon as it became clear that the doses
00:02:27brought from Moscow were not enough,
00:02:30Yermolyeva sent a request to the People's Commissariat
00:02:33of Health for them to send more. The same day, a
00:02:36train with all available supplies
00:02:39of bacteriophage departed from Moscow.
00:02:42But, while waiting for the vital
00:02:46drug, the work did not stop.
00:02:49To detect the disease at an early stage,
00:02:52Yermolyeva set up express diagnostics
00:02:56for cholera in hospitals
00:02:58and medical units. With her assistance, 2,000 beds
00:03:02were organized for the infected and another
00:03:05thousand for those who had contact with
00:03:08the sick, all of whom were given clean
00:03:12linen and clothing. The matter remained for
00:03:15the bacteriophage, whose arrival was expected any day
00:03:19now. Total disinfection was organized in the city,
00:03:23wells were chlorinated, latrines, apartments,
00:03:26hospitals, shops and administration were disinfected.
00:04:00less than a minute, wash hands necessarily with soap
00:04:03or lye, scald dishes
00:04:06with boiling water, do not drink water from wells and
00:04:09rivers. These rules were duplicated on radio and
00:04:12in newspapers. Ermolyeva recalled a funny incident when
00:04:16one day, when she went down to the Volga to take water samples,
00:04:19a boy came up to her and said:
00:04:23"Auntie, don't you see, it says, no swimming,
00:04:27no drinking raw water."
00:04:30ran away.
00:04:34Everything was ready for the treatment of the sick, only the drugs
00:04:38from the capital were awaited, but a terrible news arrived: The train with
00:04:41bacteriophage that was going from Moscow to Stalingrad was bombed
00:04:44by the Germans. Thousands of people, whose days without medicine were
00:04:47numbered, lost hope. What
00:04:50to do? There was no one else to rely on. Someone
00:04:54suggested producing cholera bacteriophage right there,
00:04:57but how to do it in a besieged city? And in huge
00:05:01quantities, because every day the drug had to be given
00:05:04both to those remaining in the city and to thousands of people leaving,
00:05:08going, flying from
00:05:10Stalingrad.
00:05:20By that time, Yermolyeva had been studying cholera
00:05:24and ways to combat it for many years,
00:05:28and although a vaccine for this terrible disease
00:05:32was developed back in 1892 by the Russian scientist
00:05:35Vladimir Khavkin, it was not suitable for Stalingrad.
00:05:39I'll explain why. A vaccine
00:05:43is a weakened or killed
00:05:46pathogen, to which the body's cells react
00:05:49as to a foreign body, and to develop
00:05:53immunity, the vaccine must be administered two or three times
00:05:56over several weeks. In Stalingrad, there was no
00:06:00time for this. The disease had already engulfed the front-line areas and
00:06:04was actively spreading through the city. It had to be
00:06:07stopped immediately. It was
00:06:10precisely for such cases that Yermolyeva developed her
00:06:14specific bacteriophage.
00:06:17She had been studying cholera since she was a student
00:06:21at the medical institute. Zinaida Yermolyeva's attention
00:06:24was drawn to so-called cholera-like
00:06:26vibrios. It was believed that they were not as dangerous as the established
00:06:30cholera pathogen, and caused only mild indigestion.
00:06:33Twenty-four-year-old Yermolyeva
00:06:36decided to test this on herself. She took 1.5
00:06:40billion microbial bodies of cholera-like embryos
00:06:43to study the course of the disease. After only
00:06:46a few hours, she developed all the classic
00:06:49symptoms of cholera. Her body was then able to overcome
00:06:53the disease, and Yermolyeva developed a means of combating several
00:06:56pathogens of the deadly disease at once. Her drug
00:07:00included a set of active bacteriophages against different
00:07:03cholera vibrios. This knowledge helped Yermolyeva in
00:07:07Stalingrad.
00:12:09is still not defeated, and in a number of countries,
00:12:13tens of thousands of cases
00:12:16are recorded annually. About how the means
00:12:20of combating this disease have changed in 80 years, we
00:12:23will talk with... Professor, microbiologist,
00:12:27researcher of the scientific heritage of Zinaida
00:12:30Yermolyeva, Larisa Petrovna Blinkova.
00:12:33Hello, Larisa Petrovna,
00:12:37how widespread is cholera
00:12:40today around the world? Now
00:12:42WHO, uh-huh, registers cases of cholera
00:12:46mostly in Africa, in the Middle East, there are cases in
00:12:50Asia, in India, as of January 2026.
00:12:53WHO reported cholera incidence
00:12:57worldwide at
00:13:0017. Now the main
00:13:04tools to combat cholera -
00:13:06what do we have? For example, in Russia,
00:13:09we have a permitted vaccine. Somewhere
00:13:13after 10 days, a certain
00:13:16level of immunity is already achieved, but as you understand, this
00:13:20requires a certain period of time, and measures need to be taken
00:13:23right now, when sometimes a person's life when ill can be counted
00:13:27in hours, so of course,
00:13:31electrolyte exposure and fluid
00:13:35administration are used, in addition to this,
00:13:37antibiotics are used, during the Great
00:13:41Patriotic War, 1942, antibiotics had
00:13:45not yet been invented,
00:13:48how did Yermolyeva manage to
00:13:51obtain this medicine? A more or less suitable
00:13:55basement was found in
00:13:57one house, in this
00:14:00basement she set up
00:14:03a laboratory, together with her
00:14:06assistants, they
00:14:09began to make cholera bacteriophages
00:14:13using prepared
00:14:17beef broth, it was boiled,
00:14:20after that they infected it
00:14:23with a strain of cholera vibrio, uh-huh.
00:14:26then they introduced bacteriophage, the bacteria
00:14:29eater, in this way,
00:14:33under bombing, in that basement, Zinaida
00:14:36Vissarionovna, together with her assistants,
00:14:40produced 5,000 doses
00:14:43of bacteriophage daily. Now it was necessary to ensure that
00:14:47everyone in the city took the medicine. Daily,
00:14:51up to 50 thousand people received bacteriophage,
00:14:54which had never happened in world practice. Each dose
00:14:58was recorded in special journals, which allowed tracking population
00:15:02coverage. Everyone who took the medicine received a certificate,
00:15:05without this paper, it was impossible even to get bread, which at that
00:15:09time was distributed by ration cards, not to mention
00:15:12leaving the city.
00:15:15As far as I know, viruses adapt to some
00:15:19drugs the fastest, but
00:15:21bacteria also have this ability, so, uh-huh.
00:15:25And I suppose this problem was in Stalingrad, how was
00:15:29it solved? Well, for the bacteriophage to be able to
00:15:32act on the cholera strains that
00:15:36were circulating in that...
00:16:52By the end of August 1942, all
00:16:55measures to combat cholera, in conjunction, worked.
00:16:58The outbreak of the disease in Stalingrad was successfully
00:17:01stopped. For her contribution to the fight against the epidemic, she was
00:17:05awarded the Order of Lenin. She was presented with it.
00:17:38At that time, there were no effective drugs for this kind
00:17:41of infection, and bandages and
00:17:45antiseptics did not help. The cause
00:17:48of infection was harmful microbes, and
00:17:51to neutralize them, Yermolyeva began studying
00:17:55the properties of mold even
00:17:58before the war, and similar work was also conducted abroad.
00:18:01The ability of mold to inhibit
00:18:04the growth of certain bacteria was first noted
00:18:07in 1871 by Professor
00:18:11Vyacheslav Manasein of the St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy. But it was not
00:18:14until almost 60 years later,
00:18:17in 1928, that the English microbiologist
00:18:21Alexander Fleming discovered which particular mold
00:18:25fungus could destroy microbes. It was
00:18:28Penicillium. But he could not isolate it in its pure form
00:18:31to use as a medicine. This was only achieved in
00:18:351941 by scientists Howard Florey and
00:18:39Ernst Chain. The appearance of the world's first antibiotic
00:18:43was a revolution in medicine. Several injections
00:18:46of the new drug literally brought back to life patients
00:18:49dying from blood poisoning.
00:18:50Doctors from the
00:18:55USSR's allied countries already
00:18:59had a medicine that could save
00:19:03thousands of lives of Soviet
00:19:05soldiers. It seemed
00:19:07like a small thing to get the drug or the technology for its
00:19:10production, but the British were not in a hurry
00:19:14to share the secret. The Soviet Union offered
00:19:17huge sums of money, but they either overcharged
00:19:20or stalled for time. And
00:19:24time, ironically, was what they didn't
00:19:26have.
00:19:28After returning to Moscow, Zinaida Yermolyeva received an assignment
00:19:32from the State Defense Committee to create a domestic
00:19:36penicillin in the shortest possible time.
00:19:38Her laboratory worked in three shifts, the most difficult
00:19:42thing was to find the right type of mold, because there are so many
00:19:45of them, and only a few are capable of synthesizing
00:19:48an antibiotic. Yermolyeva's assistant, Tamara Bolezina,
00:19:52later recalled that they collected mold everywhere, in
00:19:56the grass, on the ground, trees, basement walls, over
00:19:5990 samples, but they could not find the right microorganism. managed,
00:20:03but one day... the lab assistant
00:20:07was lucky. The ninety-third sample, which
00:20:11she took from the walls of a bomb shelter, turned
00:20:14out to be capable of suppressing
00:20:18the growth of streptococci and staphylococci, which
00:20:21cause blood poisoning.
00:20:25Rodents without treatment died within
00:20:2848 hours, and those who were given
00:20:31the medicine recovered. Later,
00:20:34the drug was tested on other
00:20:37animals that were injected with other types
00:20:40of deadly infections, the result was again
00:20:44positive. The drug was named
00:20:47Crustosin from the Latin name.
00:21:20When Florey learned of the discovery by Soviet scientists, he decided
00:21:24to compare it with his own. To Florey's surprise, in laboratory
00:21:28conditions, Soviet penicillin proved to be more active. Then
00:21:31it was decided to conduct clinical trials. 12 soldiers
00:21:35with blood poisoning were divided into two equal groups: one
00:21:39was given Soviet crustacin, the other - Florey's penicillin.
00:21:42Moreover, the dose of the Soviet drug was 10 times
00:21:46lower. On the tenth day, both groups of wounded began to recover.
00:22:20even helped those who were previously considered doomed.
00:22:24The drug was administered for the prevention
00:22:27of sepsis in severely wounded patients. Such
00:22:30patients had the letter P put in their chart, so that
00:22:33throughout their journey to the rear, they would continue
00:22:37to be given medication, and already in the hospital, an assessment
00:22:41of its
00:22:42action was given.
00:22:45The method proved to be effective. In such cases,
00:22:48blood poisoning did not develop. Thanks to the drug, mortality from
00:22:52wound infection in the army decreased by 80%, and
00:22:56the number of limb amputations by a third.
00:22:59Small laboratories for the production of Crustazine were organized right in
00:23:02field hospitals. In Moscow and Riga, the first factories
00:23:06for Soviet penicillin appeared. Later, they were opened in other
00:23:10cities.
00:23:13Today, when medicine continues to fight resistant
00:23:16infections and new viruses, Zinaida's actions. to develop
00:23:28a real weapon against cholera, stop
00:23:31the epidemic, and then, based on the experience gained, she
00:23:35created the first Soviet penicillin,
00:23:39which helped save the lives of hundreds of thousands
00:23:43of wounded soldiers. Well, it's time to summarize.
00:23:46So, is it true
00:23:48that the vaccine existing at that time did not
00:23:52work against cholera in Stalingrad? Not
00:23:55a fact. The vaccine is needed for
00:23:58prevention, and during a developing epidemic,
00:24:02people need to be treated, and very quickly. This is what
00:24:05the medics under the leadership of Zinaida
00:24:09Yermolyeva were doing. Did the Germans really manage
00:24:12to destroy all supplies of the drug for the deadly
00:24:16disease that was brought into the city on the Volga? That is a fact.
00:24:20Zinaida Yermolyeva for the treatment of infected
00:24:24requested additional doses of bacteriophage from Moscow,
00:24:26but the Germans bombed
00:24:30the train with the medicine. Well, and did Yermolyeva
00:24:34really manage to develop a new
00:24:38revolutionary medicine
00:24:40right in the basement? This is a fact, but with
00:24:44a small caveat. The fact is that the very
00:24:47fungus for the drug was found in the basement,
00:24:50and the medicine itself, the first
00:24:53Soviet antibiotic, Yermolyeva developed already in her
00:24:57Moscow laboratory. That's all for now, you were with Ororat
00:25:01Keshchan and the program Nefakt. See you on Zvezda.