"Prevention and Control of Epidemics in Russia" collection available on the Presidential Library’s portal

The Presidential Library’s portal features the major electronic collection "Prevention and Control of Epidemics in Russia". 

Archival materials, essays, modern studies describe epidemics, the measures to combat them, as well as the creation of a system for the prevention of infectious diseases. The sections devoted to plague, cholera, smallpox, and tuberculosis are especially distinguished. One of the sections of the collection includes official documents of the Russian Federation on the prevention of epidemics and modern sanitary and epidemiological requirements and rules.

“Every epidemic is an extensive experiment set up by nature itself, and <...> deserves at least as much attention from researchers as laboratory experiments on the transmission of infection from one person to another,” writes a medical historian, assistant professor at Moscow University Mikhail Lakhtin in the monograph "The Control of Epidemics in pre-Petrine Rus’" (1909). - A successful fight against epidemics cannot be achieved by only studying the pathogens of the infection or studying, even if very thorough, only one epidemic outbreak. This requires a systematic review of all previous epidemics, to the extent that careful historical research allows” (p. 5-6).

The author of the publication asks questions: what were the views on epidemics in pre-Petrine times and what measures were taken then to combat diseases. Lakhtin writes that in the distant past, a lack of understanding that dirt and poverty constituted a social danger led to the failure to fulfill the most elementary requirements of preventive hygiene, as a result of which epidemics led to mass deaths.

However, the most important cause of all epidemics of that time, both in our country and in the West, was considered "the wrath of God, for sin". "Thus, - writes Lakhtin, - the appearance of the plague in Moscow in 1425 was explained by the quarrel between the Moscow prince and Metropolitan Photius".

The book reports that it was customary to build votive churches. As a rule, they were built with the aim of getting rid of adversity, most often - epidemics, as well as in gratitude to God for ending a disaster or helping in any victory, and sometimes such temples were erected in one day.

The introduction of quarantine measures was accompanied by great cruelty. "During the epidemic in Pskov in 1552, all the Pskovites who were in Novgorod were ordered to 'go out' under the threat of burning all those who did not obey this decree".

Thus, the consequences of quarantine measures, according to Lakhtin, were no less painful than today: “Hardly any other government measure could lead to more serious economic consequences than the establishment of outposts: there was stagnation in trade, duty collection was stopped, and this <...> led to the impoverishment of the state treasury and general discontent”.

The protective measures of those years are of great historical interest, since they "served as the embryo of the entire subsequent quarantine and sanitary organization in Russia".

If you look at the section of the collection "History of infectious diseases after 1917", one can find out how the health care system worked, carrying out its humanitarian functions during the Civil War. The thick digitized folder "Correspondence with the People's Commissariat of Health and other institutions and organizations about epidemic diseases and the development of measures to combat them" (1918) contains, in particular, a telegram sent from Saratov to Moscow on October 19, 1918: "At the location of the troops A typhus epidemic broke out among the refugee prisoners of war among the Red Army in a military town. <…> We ask you to urgently allocate one million rubles for the fight against the epidemic” (p. 45).

The Presidential Library’s collection contains a number of digitized abstracts and dissertations that spotlight the development of the process of creating a systemic defense against epidemics.