How advanced is Russian medical science?

[gribbon]

Hi there,

 

I tried looking this up on Wikipedia, but there doesn't seem to be any comparison between Russian medical science and Western medical science. Does anyone here have any experience relating to Russian medical science? As far as I know, their main institution, (the Vector Institution) is quite advanced....but I may be wrong...thanks..

[CraigD]

Does anyone here have any experience relating to Russian medical science?

Though my personal experience with recent Russian medical science is anecdotal, consisting of conversations with Russian immigrants to the US currently working in medicine, the impression I’ve been able to gather is that it followed the general trend of Russian scientific research. Though this is a complicated subject in which I’m far from expert, I’ll attempt a very brief summary here, focused on medicine.

 

Early (pre AD) Russian medicine was much like that of other European and Eurasian land, consisting of a largely unwritten tradition of folk medicine and characterized by trial-and-error knowledge of medicinal plants, hygiene practices, a poor knowledge of anatomy, and a justifiably great reluctance to attempt intrusive therapies such as surgery except to repair gross trauma (eg: suture wounds). I’ve seen little evidence that Russians benefited much from Egyptian, Greek, and later Roman knowledge of medicine, which was among the most advanced of its time.

 

As the small, disorganized tribes people Russia were conquered by successive waves of better organized invaders, their folk-medical tradition grew from the knowledge these people brought. They were incorporated into first the short-lived Mongol Empire around 1200, then the Golden Horde, until its larger city-states, especially Moscow, began to assert itself around 1400. As is usually the case among people who regularly poke holes in one another, under these intensely militaristic regimes, knowledge of anatomy and surgery grew, in many areas exceeding that of classical Greece, who had a religious aversion to learning about anatomy and physiology through dissection (Greece in 400 BC was a great place to discuss philosophy, but a terrible place to get a serious puncture wound).

 

As Russia cities began to throw off their old militaristic imperial rulers, Russian medicine fell under the control of the Christian church, as it had long been throughout Europe and the Mediterranean. As happened throughout Europe, many of the old folk-medical traditions were suppressed as witchcraft, which resulted largely in a shift in medical practice from women to men.

 

Around 1600, Russian kings (tzars) notably Peter the Great, began to seek to modernize Russia with knowledge from Europe, inviting English and European academics to create universities in Russia, so, from this time on, Russian medicine was essentially the same as European medicine. For the next 3 centuries, Russia contributed to and gained from advances in medical science throughout Europe, and as America built its university system, patterning it largely after England and Europe’s, America.

 

When the tzar was overthrown and the USSR formed in 1917-1922, free communication between scientists in Russia and other countries was curtailed. Although the USSR government held science in high regard, they weren’t very good for it. While they has some success in applied science and engineering, especially their space program, basic sciences didn’t flourish. Scientific communication, even within the USSR, was subject to government inspection and control, largely crippling the scientific peer review process. Without this check, charlatans were often able to trick government officials into supporting many strange pursuits.

 

In America, England, and other anti-soviet nations, similar policies of secrecy took hold in government, leading many government officials to believe wild claims coming from various pseudo-scientific Russian institutes. In an effort not to fall behind the USSR in such fields as “psychic warfare”, organizations like the US’s CIA conducted secret research into such things as “remote viewing”. Because this research was secret, it didn’t receive scientific peer review, so followed poor or no scientific methodology, contributing essentially nothing to science or medicine.

 

After the collapse of the USSR in 1991 – the period known to the ex-Russians I’ve known - Russia medicine and Russia in general began to benefit from increased contact with the outside world. However, Russia was initially and remains in a period of economic hard times, making it difficult for its universities to attract students and faculty from other countries, or even retain its best graduates and faculty. The people I knew were all advanced degree holders from Russian universities who chose entry-level jobs in the US over potentially high-status (but terribly low-paying) academic careers in Russia

 

As far as I know, their main institution, (the Vector Institution) is quite advanced....but I may be wrong...thanks..

The Vector Institute is primarily a biological warfare research lab, famous for having one of the few remaining live cultures of smallpox. Though it boasts some impressive (or, depending on you point of view, infamous) accomplishments in the development of biological weapons, I’m unaware of any noteworthy contributions it’s made to basic biological or medical science. Although the wikipedia link mentions that it performs a function similar to the US’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC), I’m unaware of any significant public health successes by Vector. Unlike CDC, which is primarily an administrative agency coordinating the research of many university and government research facilities, Vector appears to be a single large campus and a nearby enclosed farm for the production of research animals.

 

In summary, IMHO, Russian medicine is not currently very advanced. However, based on its history and my impression of Russians I’ve met in the past couple of decades, this may not long remain the case. Russia is a big country with a lot of smart, hard-working people in it. If its government can refrain from interfering with them, and provide the basic services and security that all people need, I expect many more Russians will make important contributions to science and medicine.