[Investigations on leishmaniases at the E.I. Martsinovsky Institute of Medical Parasitology and Tropical Medicine].

The paper assesses the investigations on leishmaniases at the E.I. Martsinovsky Institute of Medical Parasitology and Tropical Medicine in 1920 to 2009. The analysis includes papers on biology, ecology, taxonomy, and experimental transmission of the agents of leishmaniases via the bites of sand flies, the principle in the control of zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (ZCL) during the agricultural development of extensive territories in the Karshin steppe, on quantitative approaches in the epidemiology of ZCL, a search for Russian effective medicaments to treat patients with this disease and the development of criteria for selecting L. major strains for individual and mass vaccinations against ZCL, the revision of Leishmania circulating in great gerbil populations, and the description of the new species L. turanica, an important parasite for L. major persistence from one transmission season to the next. The first investigations on leishmaniasis were made by Prof. E.I. Martsinovsky, the founder and the first director of the Institute in the early 20th century.