There are people who, sent to Earth from above, perform their mission in life quietly and with modesty, despite the politics involved. Many of them don’t realize the significance of their work. They know only that they simply couldn’t have done otherwise…
Looking through Turkestanskiye vedomosti in the museum archive, I paid attention to one particular item. It began: “Staraya Bukhara, August 15, 1922. Malaria in Bukhara is taking on frightful dimensions. There has been a tremendous increase in the number of cases...In the old pharmacy, the only one in the entire city, a mass of people is gathering to stand in line, hoping to get the medicine…” It is quite possible that this very item was noticed by Leonid Isaev, who had travelled to Central Asia to take up a post connected with these very circumstances.
Malaria is called “swamp fever” here. In the early 20th century thousands of people in Central Asia were killed by this widespread disease. The ground was boggy in some places, which proved a fertile breeding ground for the anopheles mosquito, which carries malaria. Defeating malaria required that the marshy areas be drained and that the water bodies be silted up.
Isaev developed a program to drain the swamps on the territory of Bukhara. By 1923, he had already established the Tropical Institute in Bukhara. His staff examined the entire Bukhara oasis, spending a considerable amount of time attempting to understand the complex system of canals that were feeding the dekhkan field. Traditional craftsmen-builders with great resourcefulness had once built a distribution network of channels, but over time the constructions became dilapidated. Several depressions formed in the swamps, and residents of nearby villages were simply decimated by the malaria that spread as a result. Longtime residents of Bukhara would say that in the sultry summer evenings it was impossible to safely walk down the street. To protect themselves from the flying clouds of mosquitoes, people would leave their houses with torches...
Every day staff members searched for new larvae of the anopheles mosquito in all areas of Bukhara and its vicinity. As soon as they were discovered, work began to destroy them. Marshes and puddles were treated with a special solution.
Work to remove the larvae was conducted in cities and regions across the entire republic. In 1926, Atropina, an anti-malaria organization, had 12 stations, seven malaria treatment centers, 26 nonmedical centers and nine mobile research teams. As a result of the research conducted by Isaev and his staff, a map of hazardous wetland regions was created to show reservoirs and canals. Observations were made at several dozen points. The Tropical Institute, which initially had only one microscope and a single mobile laboratory, gradually grew into a major research institution.
In 1931, the Tropical Institute moved to Samarkand. Leonid Isaev continued to work hard. He was the first in history to widely use public health education to combat malaria. As a result of the research, organizational and educational efforts, the Tropical Institute in Central Asia gradually eliminated diseases such as guinea worm, malaria and leishmaniasis. In 1960, the last case of malaria on the territory of modern Uzbekistan was reported.
A number of pictures can be found among Isaev’s yellowed documents. There are photos showing him lecturing at Beijing University, working at sites, as well as spending time with his family and in the office. But what did he look like? According to friends’ descriptions, he was a small thin man in a paramilitary jacket, breeches and soldiers’ wrapping. The poverty of his suit was offset by a helmet with mosquito nets. That was the Isaev who arrived in Bukhara in 1922. Ahead lay years of hard work, incessant traveling, and mapping of the wetland sites in Uzbekistan, as well as the work of draining the marshes. Leonid Isaev never suspected that his trip to Central Asia would last so long – for life. In Samarkand, as well as throughout Uzbekistan, people remember the scientist. The Parasitology Research Center in the city is named in his honor, and his bust graces the garden of the institute.
