Soviet–German Syphilis Expedition

It comprised eight medical researchers from each country and its purpose was to investigate endemic syphilis in the Kul’skoe region of the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Republic in Siberia and to determine the efficacy of the anti-syphilis drug Salvarsan.

The expedition concluded, contrary to expectations, that although affected by poor sanitation and lifestyle, the spread of syphilis in the area was caused primarily by sexual activity.

[2] In 1956, Pyotr Vasilievich Kozhewnikov of the Institute of Advanced Medical Studies for Physicians in Leningrad wrote that before 1917 there were no planned methods of syphilis control in Russia despite the disease being widespread there.

[4] The expedition was jointly organised by the Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft headed by Friedrich Schmidt-Ott,[2] the commissariat for public health service (Department of Venereal Disease) of the USSR and the Russian Academy of Sciences.

It comprised eight medical researchers from each country and its purpose was to investigate endemic syphilis in the Kul’skoe region and to determine the efficacy of the anti-syphilis drug Salvarsan.

Salvarsan treatment kit for syphilis, Germany, 1909–1912 [ 1 ]
Soviet anti-syphilis propaganda, Moscow, 1926. Image shows Dr Volf Bronner to the right of the wagon, all outside the State Venereological Institute. Photographed by Dr Karl Wilmanns. [ 2 ]
Traditional Buryat yurt. Ethnographic Museum, Ulan Ude.
Soviet and German syphilis researchers at Kul'skoe, Summer 1928. [ 2 ]