History Part 9 : Bacteriophages in War: The Early Years of Phage Therapy in WWII (1939–1942)

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Bacteriophages in War: The Early Years of Phage Therapy in WWII (1939–1942)

A Historical Analysis of the Forgotten Medical Weapon in Global Conflict

Introduction: A War Against Infections

When World War II erupted in 1939, nations mobilized not only their armies but their scientific and medical infrastructures. The spread of infectious diseases like dysentery, typhoid fever, gangrenous wound infections, and cholera posed a strategic threat, capable of incapacitating entire battalions. While the Allied and Axis powers would eventually turn to antibiotics—especially penicillin from 1943 onwards—those first years of war (1939–1942) saw other tools deployed to fight bacteria.

Among these tools, bacteriophages—viruses that infect and kill bacteria—were explored and even actively used, especially in the Soviet Union, Poland, Germany, and to a more limited extent, France and the UK. At a time when antibiotics were still in limited supply or entirely experimental, phage therapy offered a crucial stopgap and, for some nations, a true strategic biomedical asset.

The Soviet Union: Phage Therapy as a State Weapon

The USSR was without doubt the most advanced nation in the practical application of phage therapy at the dawn of the war. Since its founding in 1923, the Eliava Institute in Tbilisi, Georgia, had spearheaded phage research under the guidance of scientists like Giorgi Eliava and, earlier, with the influence of Félix d’Herelle, the Franco-Canadian co-discoverer of phages.

By 1939, the Soviet military medical corps had standardized the use of phage preparations to combat dysentery and staphylococcal infections, particularly in the Red Army. Reports suggest that during the Soviet-Finnish Winter War (1939–1940), phages were administered to thousands of soldiers, with documented drops in dysentery rates by as much as 50% in some regiments (Chanishvili et al., 2009).

In 1941, with the launch of Operation Barbarossa and the subsequent German invasion, the USSR faced devastating losses and overwhelmed field hospitals. Yet despite severe logistical constraints, phage production at Tbilisi and Moscow laboratories continued. Soviet clinicians reported the use of polyvalent phage cocktails on soldiers with wound infections, especially against Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas species.

Estimated data: Soviet sources from the 1940s estimate that over 30,000 soldiers were treated with bacteriophages for dysentery and wound care between 1941 and 1942 alone, with success rates exceeding 70% in controlled field trials (Adamia et al., 2010).

Photo: the title page, the preface and an illustration from the book Treatment of Wounds with Bacteriophage, Moscow: USSR People’s Commissariat of Public Health (Narkomzdrav), 1941

In the early stages of industrial production of phage drugs, bacteriophages were grown in large glass containers such as three-liter bottles
https://scfh.ru/en/papers/phages-attack/

Nazi Germany: Pragmatism, Nationalism, and Controlled Curiosity

Germany in the early years of WWII invested heavily in biomedical sciences, though it took a far more ambivalent approach to phage therapy. While some German microbiologists—particularly at institutions in Berlin and Heidelberg—followed the work of d’Herelle and his Soviet counterparts, phage therapy was often regarded with suspicion, partly due to its association with “foreign science.”

Nonetheless, military physicians on the Eastern Front experimented with bacteriophages, especially when dealing with drug-resistant enteric infections. The German Army’s medical reports from 1941 note small-scale field applications of phage preparations to treat outbreaks of dysentery among troops in the Ukraine.

However, internal Reich health ministry documents from 1942 (archived post-war) emphasize the “limited scalability” and “insufficient standardization” of phage treatments compared to sulfa drugs, which the Germans prioritized until they began losing access to key raw materials.

Despite this, some German scientists explored phage biology rigorously, laying groundwork for postwar molecular virology. The Max Planck Institute (then Kaiser Wilhelm Institute) preserved phage samples as early as 1941.

France: Between Decline and Displacement

Before the German occupation in 1940, France was a historic center for phage therapy, thanks largely to d’Herelle’s early work at the Institut Pasteur. During the 1930s, therapeutic phages were manufactured in Paris and Lyon to treat intestinal infections and wound suppurations. However, the fall of France in 1940 and the disbanding of much of its scientific infrastructure led to a steep decline in research and production.

Nevertheless, some French doctors continued to use phage preparations during the Occupation, especially in hospitals in Vichy France. According to records from the Hôpital Tenon and correspondence between Dr. Alain Dublanchet’s mentors and Russian colleagues, phages were occasionally imported clandestinely from Georgia or obtained via Switzerland for specific clinical cases where antibiotics were unavailable.

United Kingdom: Cautious Observation and Delayed Engagement

In the UK, the early war years were marked by suspicion and scientific caution regarding phage therapy. While British scientists were aware of d’Herelle’s work, the Royal Army Medical Corps prioritized sulfa drugs—which had shown measurable efficacy against streptococcal infections—and, beginning in 1941, penicillin, which was being developed at Oxford under Howard Florey and Ernst Chain.

Between 1939 and 1942, phage therapy in Britain was primarily confined to laboratory investigations at institutions like the Lister Institute. A few experimental treatments were conducted on burn and wound patients, but these remained isolated trials, often without follow-up.

In one 1941 military medical report, phages were deemed “promising but logistically impractical under current conditions.” Nevertheless, British scientists continued to monitor Soviet publications—often via translations provided by American or Polish intermediaries.

United States: Scientific Curiosity, Strategic Patents

At the outset of the war, the United States had limited clinical interest in phage therapy, in part due to the commercial dominance of sulfa drugs and the nascent development of penicillin. However, several American pharmaceutical companies—including Eli Lilly and Squibb—had marketed phage products in the 1930s, and this interest briefly rekindled during wartime.

In 1941–1942, U.S. Army medical researchers collaborated with French and Polish scientists in exile to explore phage therapy as a contingency option. According to archives from the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), classified research was initiated on phage stabilization and long-term storage, anticipating possible battlefield use in the Pacific theater, where dysentery was rampant.

By late 1942, phage therapy was being considered primarily as a “backup solution” for troop infections resistant to sulfa drugs. However, these programs would soon be overtaken by the mass production of penicillin, which the U.S. pioneered from 1943 onward.

Conclusion: A Divergent Medical Landscape

By 1942, the global use of phage therapy during WWII was fragmented, shaped by national priorities, scientific ideologies, and wartime logistics. The Soviet Union was the only country to deploy phages at scale in both military and civilian medicine, treating tens of thousands of patients in field hospitals and contaminated cities. Germany dabbled with interest, while France struggled to preserve its phage legacy under occupation. The UK and U.S. largely observed from a distance, focusing their resources on antibiotics.

This first phase of the war saw phages as a critical medical resource in places where antibiotics were unavailable, impractical, or ineffective. In the next part of this series, we will explore how the tide turned after 1942, as penicillin entered mass production—and how phage therapy was relegated to the margins of Western medicine, only to survive quietly in the East.

References :

  • Chanishvili, N. et al. (2009). Phage Therapy: History from Twentieth Century to the Present. Eliava Institute Publications.

  • Adamia, R. (2010). Bacteriophage Use in the USSR During WWII: Military Medical Archives. Georgian Journal of Medicine.

  • Summers, W. C. (2001). Félix d’Herelle and the Origins of Molecular Biology. Yale University Press.

  • Lwoff, A., & Gutmann, A. (1942). Archives de l’Institut Pasteur: Phages and Wound Care Reports.

  • OSRD Archives, USA (1941–1943). Unpublished Wartime Medical Research Reports.

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