“Scientific Regiment”: moss as cotton wool, dental cement, and sulfonamides

In the run-up to the Victory Day (9 May), Kazan Federal University joins the Scientific Regiment initiative and speaks about its employees’ endeavors during the Great Patriotic War of 1941 – 1945.

During the war, the healthcare system of Tatarstan faced numerous hardships, and the University worked tirelessly on supplying it with necessary materials.

The Department of Organic Chemistry, then headed by the renowned Alexander Arbuzov, and Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, produced sulfonamides for Kazanian hospitals. Overall, they supplied 30 kg of sulfazole, 18 kg of sulfanilamide, and some quantities of niacin and sulfapyridine. Apart from that, the scientists provided medical ether and glucose to the local hospitals.

Kazan University botanists collected medicinal herbs together with schoolchildren, students, homemakers, and other citizens remaining in Kazan. In 1943 alone, they gathered 815 kg of valerian root, 10 kg of belladonna, and other plants.

To compensate for a lack of dressings, the researchers, calling back to the experience of World War I, offered to use sphagnum. Sphagnum dressings were of excellent quality and could be used for several days before changing. After intense surveys of wetlands around Kazan, it was found that 1 square meter of wetland can give about 750 grams of sphagnum. Eventually, gauze pads with sphagnum were used in hospitals during the war.

Another challenge was presented by dental cement, or, more precisely, lack thereof. Before the war, it was supplied from Leningrad, a city besieged by the Nazi forces and blockaded almost completely between September 1941 and January 1944. As a result, test production of dental cement was launched at the Laboratory of Physical Chemistry. One of the tests proved to be successful, and over 100 kg of dental cement was produced before the end of 1943.

Overall, 54 newly arranged types and titles of medications and preparations for healthcare were being produced in Kazan by 1944.