All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine

ALL-UNION INSTITUTE OF EXPERIMENTAL MEDICINE under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, VIEM - the oldest scientific research institute in our country (see Institutes); organized in 1890 and reorganized in 1932. Initially the institute consisted of departments: physiology (I. P. Pavlov), epizootology (Kh. N. Gel'man), pathological anatomy (N. V. Uskov), syphilology (E. F. Shperk), chemistry (N. V. Nentsky), general microbiology (S. N. Vinogradsky), medical microbiology (N. K. Shul'ts), Pasteur station (Krayukin). In the post-October period, in connection with the powerful development of scientific research institutes in the country, the Institute of Experimental Medicine of the People's Commissariat of Health of the RSFSR also significantly expanded through the organization of new departments: experimental pharmacology (N. I. Kravkov), biological station with genetics of higher nervous activity (Academician Pavlov), experimental neuropathology (A. D. Speransky), general physiology (K. M. Bykov), sanitary-hygienic (Z. G. Frenkel), metabolism (E. S. London), experimental biology (A. G. Gurch), and others. Even during this period, the Institute, being one of the most powerful and oldest, at the same time was built on the model of a comprehensive scientific research institute, including a number of medical specialties, the main essence of which was theoretical research with simultaneous practical application. The successful completion of the first five-year plan and the establishment of a powerful industrial base for the further development of socialist culture also required medicine to develop at a faster pace in the direction of complete correspondence between theoretical and practical medicine with the pace of development of the socialist economy and socialist culture. At the same time, the transition of the main mass of specialists to the path of active participation in socialist construction with simultaneous mastery of the Marxist-Leninist dialectical-materialist method of thinking in scientific research and the already existing beginnings of a comprehensive institute led to the fact that the best part of the old and young specialists of the institute, who found active support for their aspirations in the reorganization of the institute on new principles in the person of the great proletarian writer A. M. Gorky, submitted to government bodies a project for the reconstruction of the Institute of Experimental Medicine into an All-Union Institute with its transfer from the People's Commissariat of Health of the RSFSR to the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and with its reorganization into a powerful comprehensive all-union scientific research institute, which should conduct research work in a new way. As a result of discussion of the proposed project, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on November 15, 1932, published a decree on the organization of the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine, entrusting it with the task of 'comprehensive study of the human organism on the basis of modern theory and practice of medical sciences and the development of new methods of research, treatment and prevention on the basis of the latest achievements in the field of biology, chemistry, physics and technical reconstruction of special laboratory and clinic equipment'. In the charter, approved by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on September 4, 1933, in the general provisions on VIEM it is stated: 'The All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine (VIEM) is the highest scientific research institution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and is under the Council of People's Commissars of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics'. ASS

ALL-UNION INSTITUTE OF EXPERIMENTAL MEDICINE

"Being one of the constituent parts of the network of scientific research institutions of the USSR, the Institute coordinates its work with the People's Commissariats of Health of the union republics, and with medical and biological scientific research institutions of the USSR, spreading the influence of its achievements on their practical work". "The Institute establishes and maintains scientific connections with academies and other scientific institutions and societies, both of the USSR and other countries, and convenes scientific congresses, conferences and meetings in the established manner". "The Institute publishes in the form of periodic and non-periodical publications the scientific works approved by it and has its own publishing house for this purpose". The significance of VIEM as a center of theoretical medicine and reconstruction of medical research was emphasized in the report of V. M. Molotov at the XVI Congress of the VKP(b), where in the section on upcoming major constructions it was stated that in the creation of VIEM "one cannot but see a new attitude toward man and toward science in a country where socialism is being built"; in the report of A. M. Gorky at the All-Union Congress of Writers, the creation of VIEM was characterized as one of the manifestations of the powerfully developing socialist humanism. The reorganization of the Institute on the basis of the decree of the USSR Council of People's Commissars of 15/X 1932 was carried out in the direction of creating a number of new departments and the preliminary development of fundamental problems of medicine for their comprehensive resolution by numerous laboratories and clinics of the Institute. Along with the reorganization of the Institute, a network of branches was created in Leningrad, among which the most powerful branch was the Moscow one, which was formed, on the one hand, from the Institute for the Study of Higher Nervous Activity at the Communist Academy, transferred by the decree of the Presidium of the USSR Central Executive Committee of 17/IV 1933 into the system of the Institute of Experimental Medicine and reorganized by the latter into the department of physiology and pathology of the sense organs, and from the department of human physiology of the Institute for the Study of Occupational Diseases named after Obukh, transferred by the latter on a contractual basis into the VIEM system. These two departments formed the main core of the Moscow branch, to which a whole series of separate laboratories and clinics were then joined on a contractual basis. With the aim of bringing all the theoretical work of VIEM closer to the broad practice of healthcare and establishing closer contacts between VIEM and the People's Commissariat of Health of the USSR Council of People's Commissars, by its resolution in April 1934, VIEM was transferred to Moscow, leaving a branch in Leningrad. In June and July 1936, the government of the USSR adopted 2 extremely important resolutions concerning VIEM. By the first (resolution of the USSR Central Executive Committee of 26/VI 1936), VIEM was named after A. M. Gorky, the initiator of the reorganization of the Institute and its most active friend. By the second (resolution of the USSR Council of People's Commissars of 15/VII 1936), the paths for the further work of VIEM were outlined. The USSR Council of People's Commissars noted that VIEM "in the first years of its existence has successfully fulfilled the task set by the Government of attracting major figures in science to its work for the comprehensive study of the human organism and has become the main scientific research institution of the USSR in the field of medical sciences". At the same time, the USSR Council of People's Commissars recognized that the main shortcoming of VIEM is "a certain detachment of its scientific research work from the practical tasks of healthcare, from the most pressing tasks of treatment and prevention...". "To the present day, VIEM lacks a proper organization of clinical work, without which it is impossible to introduce scientific achievements into medical practice, and proper connections with scientific research institutes of healthcare have not been established"! The USSR Council of People's Commissars proposed "that VIEM reorganize its scientific-theoretical work on the basis of generalizing the vast experience of scientific research and practical work in the USSR, with due broad account of the experience of other countries, in order to direct it toward resolving the most important practical problems in the field of new methods of treatment and prevention, especially for such diseases as cancer, tuberculosis, influenza, malaria, typhus, scarlet fever, rheumatism". The USSR Council of People's Commissars also outlined a number of practical measures to improve the work of VIEM. At the present time, the structure of VIEM consists of departments and laboratories by sections of the following sciences: physiology, morphology, psychoneurology, chemistry (biochemistry, organic chemistry, physical chemistry), physics (biophysics, photobiology, biological physical chemistry), epidemiology, including microbiology and parasitology; corresponding clinics, a scientific-design department with experimental workshops, a scientific photo-cinema department and a library. VIEM branches: Leningrad branch with departments and laboratories by sections of the sciences listed above, developing issues that complement the work of VIEM in Moscow according to a plan approved by VIEM. The subtropical branch of VIEM in Sukhumi with a monkey nursery and laboratories, which serves as a base for experimental work on monkeys for the main departments of VIEM. The main directions of VIEM's work for the coming years are: physiology and pathology of higher nervous activity, neurohumoral connections and nervous trophicity, physiology and pathology of the sense organs, age-related features of the human organism, metabolism, the problem of living protein, the problem of cancer, childhood infections, intestinal infections, brucellosis and a number of others. In 1936, VIEM begins major construction, which will include all currently existing laboratories and departments with the possibility of their further growth. In addition, a somatic clinic for healthy and sick patients, a clinic for the healthy and sick child, a psychiatric clinic, chambers for artificial climate, a library for 300,000 volumes, premises for a museum and exhibitions, residential buildings for scientific staff and so on will be built. All this taken together will constitute a whole medical campus. A plot in the city of Moscow, in the Silver Forest, has been allocated for construction. The total volume of construction will be 900,000 m³. The total cost of construction is estimated at about 100,000,000 rubles. Being in essence the highest scientific research institution of the Union, VIEM includes in the circle of problems studied questions of medical practice, namely: 1) resolution of the most important practical problems in the field of new methods of treatment and prevention (issues of the fight against cancer, influenza, malaria, scarlet fever, etc.); 2) implementation of the results of experimental work in the practice of medical institutions; 3) strengthening work in the development of modern equipment both for scientific research purposes and for practical application in the field of diagnosis and treatment; 4) improvement of the qualifications of personnel of scientific research institutes and higher educational institutions. VIEM has its own publishing house, founded in 1933, which, besides separate monographs and collections of works, publishes periodicals: "Bulletin of VIEM under the USSR Council of People's Commissars" (L.-M., 1933) and "Archive of Biological Sciences" (P.-L., since 1892)."