The "Magic bullet" by Paul Ehrlich and the nomadic culture: the role of salvarsan in the health improvement of the peoples of the transboundary region of Russia and Mongolia (the 1920s - 1930s)

The author concentrates attention on the role of Salvarsan, the first truly efficient anti-syphilis drug invented by P. Ehrlich together with A. Bertheim and S. Hata in 1909, in the fight against syphilis in the transboundary region of Russia and Mongolia. A German chemist of Jewish descent, Paul Ehrlich was a genius, whose search for a chemical substance that would kill bacteria on the spot led him toward a number of groundbreaking discoveries in the field of immunology, pharmacology, and venereology. Calling Salvarsan a pivotal object of the entire campaign to eradicate syphilis in Buryatia, the author traces how the contradictions around the use of Salvarsan led to the ambitious and highly successful Soviet-German syphilis expedition of 1928 to Buryat-Mongolia. Consequently, the article views Salvarsan not as an instrument, but as an actor of the international medical cooperation of the 1920s. The author also traces the use of Salvarsan by Soviet physicians in Mongolia, pointing out the similar importance that the drug had in the eradication of syphilis there. In Mongolia, Ehrlich’s brainchild acquired an even bigger importance than in Buryat-Mongolia turning into a symbol of salvation from a torturous and disfiguring disease. The symbolic meaning that the Mongols attribute to the «red injection» even nowadays testifies to the fact that Salvarsan not only played a great role in the healthy development of this nation, but also reminds the modern generation about the role of Soviet medical internationalists in the construction of the Mongolian healthcare.