For the benefit of science. How Soviet virologist Mikhail Chumakov fought tick-borne encephalitis

"They said different things about Chumakov: unsettled, stubborn, most importantly - stubborn. Well, stubbornness is not always a bad quality. And there are people with whom it is difficult in easy circumstances, but unexpectedly easy, reliable in the most difficult circumstances. It seems that Chumakov belongs to such people. Stubborn? Taiga must also be stubborn, in character they will fit together"

This is how Mikhail Petrovich Chumakov, a member of the expedition, is described by Alexander Sharov in his story "The First Battle. The story about virologists", dedicated to the history of the discovery of the tick-borne encephalitis virus.

Mikhail Petrovich Chumakov (1909-1993), after completing his postgraduate studies at the Institute of Microbiology under Professor Ilya Krichevsky in 1936, joined the Virus Department of the Institute of Microbiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, headed by Lev Aleksandrovich Zilber. And a year later, in 1937, as a member of the first tick expedition he traveled to the Far East to study the nature of a new infectious disease, the causative agent of which, as the participants of the expedition found out, turned out to be the ixodid tick.

Mikhail Chumakov performed autopsies on the bodies of people who died of tick-borne encephalitis to isolate the virus. He took blood serum from those who recovered and injected it into the sick. During the first month of the expedition the first cures appeared. He managed to induce passive immunity in a local goat.

On June 29, 1937, during the autopsy of the corpse of a man who died of tick-borne encephalitis, Mikhail Pavlovich became infected.

The disease was severe and resulted in hearing loss, paralysis of the right arm and neck muscles. He was treated in Khabarovsk, then sent to Crimea for rehabilitation. During long and hard training, he learned to move his left arm, and his hearing was partially restored.

Here is how E.N. Levkovich describes the condition of the sick man. Levkovich, head of the Northern detachment, in a letter to A.V. Gutsevich:

"Mikhail Petrovich (Chumakov) returned to Moscow on his own legs, but in poor condition. He was examined in the Margulis clinic and then taken to Sevastopol to the Sechenov Institute. At present his hearing is sharply affected, there are still lesions of the trigeminal nerve, his right arm is paralyzed, his left arm has become much stronger. As he writes, he is visited by crises of the heaviest mood. I hope that he will return from Sevastopol able to work".

He used his disease for the benefit of science - he believed that the tick-borne encephalitis virus, once in the body, remains in it, even after complete or partial cure. In the last days of his life, he decided to have his body posthumously tested for the presence of the tick-borne encephalitis virus.

Thanks to Mikhail Chumakov, new data on the nature of chronic tick-borne encephalitis were obtained, its etiology was established, and the peculiarities of the infectious process at remote stages of the disease were established.

In 1941, Mikhail Chumakov was awarded the Stalin Prize together with scientists who participated in the discovery of the virus.

From 1938 to 1955, M.P. Chumakov worked as: head of the scientific laboratory at the clinics of VIEM; head of the department of neuroinfections of the Institute of Neurology of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and from 1948 - deputy director for science; director of the Institute of Virology of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences (1950-1954) and head of the poliomyelitis laboratory of this Institute.