Visa to Greece for Russians in 2016: is it necessary, how to do it
In the context of fictitious historical myths about the “savagery” of the Vedic Rus and Vedic Rus', a false idea is imposed on us that Europe has always been a kind of “center of the civilized world”, which blessed the rest of the world with the “benefits of civilization” and, in particular, together with the Christian Church, helped the ancient Slavs and Rus to receive their own written language and statehood. However, the true picture of our history is very different from the opinion of its falsifiers, for even in much later times of the Middle Ages, Christianized Europe presented a rather wretched spectacle as a civilization mired in filth and unsanitary conditions. This is how N. Pavlishchev describes medieval Europe during the time of Yaroslav the Wise using the example of France in his book “Forbidden Rus'”:
“France of that period was very different from Rus', not for the better... In addition, Europe at the beginning of the millennium was unbearably dirty! The ancient rules of taking care of your body were a thing of the past, the Roman baths remained in the memories... And washing became... completely indecent! One can only sympathize with our Yaroslavna, who is accustomed to something completely different...
We have little evidence about France itself in the 10th-11th centuries, but it is unlikely that it was cleaner or much more literate than Renaissance Europe. No, for a whole thousand years Europe simply died out from dirt! For some reason, the Europeans did not know three things without which the life of people is unthinkable if their population density is higher than one person per square kilometer - latrines, cesspools and cattle burial grounds. These were... the streets or even the houses themselves! This was especially true for cities.
“In the cities of that time there was a stench almost unimaginable to us modern people. The streets stank of manure, the courtyards stank of urine, the staircases stank of rotten wood and rat droppings, the kitchens of foul coal and sheep fat; the unventilated living rooms stank of caked dust, the bedrooms of dirty sheets , damp feather beds and the sharp-sweet fumes of chamber pots. From the fireplaces there was a smell of sulfur, from tanneries - caustic alkalis, from slaughterhouses - released blood.
People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; their mouths smelled like rotten teeth, their stomachs smelled like onion juice, and their bodies, as they grew old, began to smell like old cheese and sour milk and painful tumors. The rivers stank, the squares stank, churches stank, under bridges and in palaces stank. Peasants and priests, apprentices and wives of masters stank, the entire noble class stank, even the king himself stank - he stank like a predatory beast, and the queen stank like an old goat, in winter and summer... Every human activity, both creative and destructive , every manifestation of nascent or dying life was accompanied by a stench."
These lines are taken from Patrick Suskind's very popular work "Perfume" in recent years. The events of the eighteenth century are described, but any of the phrases are applicable to the eleventh century. Europe during the time of Anna Yaroslavna was just as dirty and smelly! Of course, Paris of the eleventh century was not yet literally overgrown with sewage, but only because it was still a large village, and became a European city under the son of Anna Yaroslavna - King Philip I.
I could add a lot to Suskind’s words, but I will spare the feelings of the readers and limit myself to only a small list of victims of the swinish life of the French court. Even accustomed to the constant stench that surrounded him from birth, King Phillip II once fainted when he stood at the window, and passing carts loosened a thick layer of sewage with their wheels. By the way, this king died of... scabies. Pope Clement VII also died from it! And Clement V fell from dysentery. One of the French princesses died, eaten by lice! Not surprisingly, lice were called “God’s pearls” and were considered a sign of holiness.
Queen Isabella of Castile of Spain proudly admitted that she washed only twice in her life - at birth and before her wedding! The famous “Sun King” Louis XIV took water treatments the same number of times, by the way, both times on the urgent advice of doctors. But this event seemed so monstrous to the favorite of women and lover of all kinds of decorations that he vowed never to follow the lead of the Aesculapians again!
The most common illness of the Middle Ages was diarrhea. Add to this caries, scabies, lice, wounds that stink due to sanitation, old sweat... well, and much more - and you get a very colorful image of “enlightened” Europe.”
This is the same “civilization” that Christianity and “enlightened” Europe could have brought to us, but thank God they did not. For all these myths remained the invention of falsifiers of history, since in reality everything happened exactly the opposite. It was the Russian troops that reached Paris during the time of Napoleon who taught Europeans to cleanliness and basic sanitary standards, of which Christianized Europe had a very distant concept. While since the times of Vedic Rus', our people have been steaming in baths.
But it was not only the baths themselves that were condemned by the Christian Church, but also the tradition that existed in Vedic times of men and women going to the baths together. This is how the Russian traveler, biologist, anthropologist G. Sidorov describes it in his book “The Secret Chronology and Psychophysics of the Russian People”: "We already mentioned that in Rus' the bath ritual was associated with four earthlythe elements. People didn't go to the bathhouse to wash themselves, like this
is being done now, but mainly to cleanse your soul (energy field, or, in modern language - aura) from the influence of negative darkenergies that tend to accumulate on the externallayer of the human energy protective bell.
After the baths were decorated with herbs and leaves of medicinal trees, inThey were walking in a crowd of men, women and children. Wasn't in public bathsonly old people, they preferred to carry out the purification ceremony in familybaths. Just before the Kupala holidays I visitedApostle Andrew the First-Called to the Russian land. What happened to himto see plunged the devout Christian into horror. Russians, according to himopinion, both women and men, all together (this alone was shockingApostle) so whipped themselves in the flooded to the point of impossibilitybathhouses with birch and oak brooms, it was scary in themlook. And after such an “execution”, having doused himself with cold keywater, they again went to the shelves of the baths and again continued“to mock” oneself.
It was difficult for a Christian to understand what was ancient cleansing with the five earthly elements, or Russiana bath ritual that, fortunately, has been preservedon our land since Hyperborean times - thisjust what the one mired in the mud needed so much, lice, ravaged by periodic epidemics Judeo-Christian civilization. Our people, at leastChristians called the bath ritual satanic,was, thanks to fire, water, healing mud, herbsand brooms, healthy, full of strength, and throughout its historyI didn’t know such a European scourge as lice.”
In general, judge for yourself who actually brought “civilization” to whom, and who brought the Pharisaic culture and religion of total filth and unsanitary conditions, which made it possible to feed the dark satanic egregor of Amun-Set-Yahweh-Jehovah-Satan with diseases, suffering and death in epidemics many people, not to mention the Inquisition and religious wars. And, it is not surprising that until now almost all Western politicians suffer from “double standards” in relation to Russia and our peoples. After all, only with the help of outright lies is it possible to make people believe in a falsified story. And only a spiritually flawed person with signs of progressive mental illness can bow to the West and scold everything Russian.
Romantic natures often imagine the past, information about which we draw from “historical” novels, in a rosy light. Ladies, gentlemen, honor and love, intrigue and nobility. The Louvre, finally. Oh, how beautifully Alexander Dumas the Elder described all this court splendor!
However, in reality, everything was not so beautiful and fragrant then in that same Louvre... We are talking about toilets. It turns out that there was not a single one in the huge palace. In the gallant era it was not yet considered necessary to establish latrines.
According to an eyewitness account, in and around the Louvre, inside the courtyard and in its environs, in alleys, behind doors - almost everywhere you could see thousands of piles and smell a variety of smells of the same product - natural to humans.
Thus, amazed by the realities of the Louvre, the great Leonardo da Vinci, who visited Paris at the invitation of King Francois I, hastily designed a flush toilet for the monarch. However, it did not take root immediately. They simply did not know how to take any specific measures to solve hygienic problems and lived as they had to.
Residents of Parisian high-rise buildings simply got rid of slop - pouring it out the window. And so as not to accidentally splash a gaping passerby on top, before pouring out the slop, they shouted loudly three times: “Careful, I’m pouring it out!”
This is not to say that the authorities did not struggle with the problem. The first law prohibiting throwing the contents of chamber pots out of the window was passed back in 1270. But bans alone are not enough, and city sewerage did not yet exist. So Paris stank worse than the most fetid sewer in the world...
That insects were a problem is evidenced by examples of ingenious devices that can be found even in the Hermitage. We're talking about flea traps. Noble people ordered them from precious metals. Devices with bait - a piece of fur soaked in blood - were placed in fluffy wigs, often adorning shaved heads.
And the Russian washes, yes, he’s glad
The Russian people were surprisingly clean. Even the poorest family had a bathhouse in their yard. Depending on how it was heated, they steamed in it “white” or “black”. If smoke from the stove came out through the chimney, they steamed “white.” If the smoke went directly into the steam room, then after ventilation the walls were doused with water, and this was called steaming “black”.
There was another original way to wash - in a Russian oven. After preparing the food, straw was laid inside, and the person, carefully, so as not to get dirty in soot, climbed into the oven. Water or kvass was splashed on the walls.
From time immemorial, the bathhouse was heated on Saturdays and before major holidays. First of all, men and boys went to wash, and always on an empty stomach. It was believed, and by the way, quite rightly, that going to the bathhouse on a full stomach leads to weight gain.
The head of the family prepared a birch broom, soaking it in hot water, sprinkled kvass on it, and swirled it over hot stones until fragrant steam began to emanate from the broom, and the leaves became soft, but did not stick to the body. And only after that they began to wash and steam.
The bathhouse came to Europe only in the 18th century, when Peter I, who visited Amsterdam and Paris, ordered bathhouses to be built there for the soldiers accompanying him. And after 1812, the Russian army built baths in all the countries liberated from Napoleon.
That's how Rusich is. It was you who taught the Europeans how to wash.
Don’t forget about this before you put “dirty Europe” above yourself and our Rus'.
Truth and myths about the Middle Ages: Russia and Europe
Source: http://shkolazhizni.ru/archive/0/n-21164/
© Shkolazhizni.ru
Source: http://shkolazhizni.ru/archive/0/n-21164/
© Shkolazhizni.ru
Source: http://shkolazhizni.ru/archive/0/n-21164/
© Shkolazhizni.ru
What was hygiene like in medieval Europe? Often the past, information about which we draw from “historical” novels, appears in a rosy light. Let's remember The Three Musketeers. Ladies, gentlemen, honor and love, intrigue and nobility. The Louvre, finally. There were, however, some problems in the palace. Not quite palace-like, but reflecting the characteristics of the era. The technology that ensures the coexistence of large groups of people has not yet been developed, which left an unpleasantly smelling imprint on everyday life. I'm talking about toilets. It turns out that there was not a single one in the huge palace. What were the architects thinking? About sublime beauty, of course. And nature is nature, so why think about it. In the gallant era it was not yet considered necessary to establish latrines. According to an eyewitness: “In the Louvre and around it, inside the courtyard and in its environs, in the alleys, behind the doors - almost everywhere you can see thousands of piles and smell a variety of smells of the same thing - a product of the natural function of those who live here and come here every day.” . Struck by the realities of the Louvre, the great Leonardo da Vinci, who visited Paris at the invitation of King Francois I, hastily designed a flush toilet for the monarch. But, as you know, many of the ideas of genius were centuries ahead of modern times. A water toilet for a French courtyard is no exception. For our contemporaries this all looks wild, but “what is natural”... The medieval Louvre is not an exception, but only part of the whole. They simply did not know how to take any specific measures to solve hygienic problems and lived as they had to. Residents of Parisian high-rise buildings simply got rid of slop - poured it out the window. And in order not to accidentally splash a gaping passerby from above, they adhered to the rule: before pouring out the slop, the townspeople shouted loudly three times: “Careful, I’m pouring it out!” It cannot be said that the authorities did not fight the phenomenon. The first law prohibiting throwing the contents of chamber pots out of the window was passed back in 1270. But bans alone are not enough, and city sewerage did not yet exist. Aristocrats wore silk underwear under their exquisite outfits. The reason for its popularity is simple. There were no parasites, fleas or lice in the slippery material; there was nothing for them to cling to. That insects were a problem is evidenced by examples of ingenious devices that can be found even in the Hermitage. We're talking about flea traps. Noble people ordered them from precious metals. Devices with bait - a piece of fur soaked in blood - were placed in fluffy wigs, often adorning shaved heads. From the point of view of a modern hygienist, there was nothing unusual in the spread of insects. Hygiene requirements are a product of a later time. And in the Middle Ages, even noble ladies took a bath no more than two or three times a year. The famous Sun King, the son of Anne of Austria, Louis XIV, washed only twice in his life, and then only on the insistent recommendations of doctors. Against such a civilized European background, some Russian customs looked strange, to say the least. Louis XIV even sent special spies to the court of Peter I to find out what exactly His Serene Highness Menshikov, who visited the bathhouse weekly, was doing in solitude. The Sun King, who was not friends with water, can be understood. He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that he could wash so often. However, baths are baths, and in general the fragrance of the streets of Russian cities was not much different from European ones. Moscow newspapers wrote about the “smelly streams” at the monument to Minin and Pozharsky back in 1871. Among all Russian cities and towns at the beginning of the 20th century, and there were more than a thousand of them, only eleven had sewerage. Over the past hundred years, the life of city residents has changed dramatically. It is worth remembering this, and, while poeticizing the past, appreciating the present.
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Goodbye unwashed Europe
How scientific progress weaned the West from using soap and hot water
The culprit of the most destructive epidemics in the history of mankind, the plague, is only revealing its secrets. Only in 2015 did scientists learn that its pathogen became deadly (due to one random mutation) just ten thousand years ago, and began killing people en masse at the end of the Bronze Age. The rapid spread of the Black Death among medieval Europeans is usually explained by the fact that they hardly washed themselves. Is unsanitary conditions to blame for epidemics and how true is the idea of a stinking and lice-infested Middle Ages? Lenta.ru tried to figure this out.
Catapult Throw
By the middle of the 14th century, Europe had not known the plague for almost eight hundred years in a row - the plague bacillus was not endemic to these territories, and the rats and fleas of certain species that carried it could not by themselves get from China to the opposite end of the continent.
But in 1346 they got a little help - with a catapult. The Horde, besieging the Genoese trading post of Kafa in the Crimea, was decimated by the plague, and they began to throw the bodies of the dead into the fortress. Fleas carried the bubonic plague to the besieged, and after the retreat of the Horde, the Genoese ships departed for the Mediterranean, carrying the “black death” further across the expanses of Europe.
This caused an unprecedented catastrophe: the countries most affected by the plague lost from a third to half of their population. The total number of deaths is estimated at several million people.
Since then, the plague has not left Europe: local fleas (rat fleas) and the rats themselves have become its permanent carriers. Major epidemics occurred in the Old World until the 18th century.
An era of ignorance and obscurantism?
The Middle Ages had a bad reputation. “The normal level of medieval atrocity” (Strugatsky), “the Middle Ages are an era of cultural regression, ignorance and obscurantism” and so on. In particular, it is generally accepted that with the fall of the Roman Empire in Europe they forgot how to make soap and abandoned the custom of washing. In general, “the church forbade washing, since nudity is a sin.” In addition, the lack of understanding that the disease is caused by bacteria, and not the will of God, made it difficult to declare quarantine and competently combat the epidemic.
Alas, these ideas, based on the best research of historical science of the 18th-19th centuries, did not stand up to the test of facts in the last century.
Even in early medieval Germany, where there were never any Roman traditions, the word “bath” is found in the Bavarian Truth of the 8th century, as well as in many other sources. Public baths were commonplace, where both men and women washed - after all, the idea of the inadmissibility of nudity in public places, attributed to the church, in fact arose in Europe only in the 19th century.
In Paris, back in the 13th century, the number of public baths numbered in the dozens, and the 12th-century British encyclopedist, monk Alexander Neckam wrote that he woke up in the morning from the too loud screams of the bathhouse attendants, inviting people to their establishments. The only thing that seriously embarrassed the church in these places was that they were often used somewhat for other purposes.
Finds in the Tyrolean castle of Lemberg showed that in medieval Europe there were not only bras depicted on many medieval miniatures (by the 15th century they looked like family panties), but also bras and women's panties of a completely modern look. Moreover, Michel Montaigne (16th century) mentions the manner of changing this linen with frequency, which, unfortunately, not all of our contemporaries practice.
Image: Antithesis Christi et Antichristi (Jenský kodex/Jena Codex), Praha, Knihovna Národního muzea, IV.B.24, fol. 80r
The invention of quarantine
The idea that medieval people considered God’s wrath to be the only source of illness is also questionable, which is why they did not take measures against infection with the plague. Even before our era, it was known that “tiny creatures, invisible to the eye, floating in the air, enter the body through the mouth and nose, causing serious diseases.” The 15th century Venetian physician Girolamo Fracastoro also spoke about them, although less confidently. And although the Greek theory of miasma - harmful gases that poison the body and cause disease - was more widespread in the Middle Ages, it also logically led to quarantine measures.
The authorities of Genoa did not allow the sick into the city on pain of death. In Venice, since 1348, all arriving ships were forced to wait for a long time at sea (the incubation period of the plague is short), and all citizens who died from the disease were ordered to be buried at considerable depth on a specially designated island. The word “quarantine” itself comes from the medieval Venetian dialect and means 40 days of isolation for arriving ships. Moreover, the experience of organizing the anti-epidemic fight in Venice at that time is considered so exemplary even by today’s experts that they suggested drawing lessons from it in connection with the modern Ebola outbreak.
This experience was gradually borrowed by the whole of Europe. The “Great Plague” in London in the 17th century was accompanied by a ban on sick people leaving their homes for a quarantine period, as well as the introduction of standards on the depth of plague burials.
What progress has it made?
Plague pandemics sharply increased interest in medicine: all of Europe realized the importance of this science. Particularly inquisitive medical workers moved from familiarization with the ancient theories of Galen to practical experiments in autopsy of corpses and, from the second half of the 15th century, to their own theoretical work.
At the beginning of the modern era, doctors hypothesized that the miasma emanating from the earth caused diseases the more easily the more vulnerable the person himself was to them. Washing, which expands the pores of the body, greatly facilitates the passage of miasma into the body. Verdict: all these public baths and baths do not increase the chances of survival.
As Erasmus of Rotterdam summed up: “Nothing is more dangerous than when many expose themselves to the same vapor, especially when their bodies are exposed to the heat...” It seemed logical that if diseases were carried by miasmas or “the smallest organisms floating in the air” , then steam (or gas) speeds up this process - after all, no one yet knew that high temperature kills microbes! In addition, the Renaissance titan continues, many visitors to such places “suffer from infectious diseases, ... without a doubt, many of them have syphilis.” As Erasmus notes, although the custom of visiting the baths continues (as of 1526), it is rapidly losing popularity: “25 years ago nothing in Brabant was so fashionable as visiting the baths, but now they have gone out of fashion everywhere, because syphilis has taught us to hold on away from them."
B. Luini. Bathing nymphs. Fresco. Milan Brere.
The amusing juxtaposition of the not entirely correct hypothesis of the emerging modern medicine on the epidemic of syphilis imported from America bore fruit: the opinion spread among the population that washing was harmful. Of course, the victory of reason over reckless washing was not immediate. The diary of the German merchant Lucas Rehm records that in May-June 1511 he washed 127 times - significantly more often than you and I.
There is nothing strange about this: back then, the owner often offered the guest the opportunity to wash together in a bathhouse or bathhouse (including during trade transactions), just as our contemporaries offer drinks. But the active propaganda of supporters of the fashionable theory of miasma changed the situation. Just three decades later, Henry VIII already prohibits baths in the vicinity of London.
The results of the transition from the Middle Ages to the New Age in hygienic terms were sad. Until recently, Europeans who washed regularly often stopped doing so altogether - doctors don't advise! Considering that other recommendations of doctors of the time (for example, strict quarantine during the Great Plague of London in the 17th century) clearly worked, they listened to these too.
Pure Russian barbarians
Of course, there were those who remained on the sidelines of the high road of progress. Thus, at the end of the 16th century, an enlightened European, a learned Cambridge graduate, sent on a diplomatic mission to barbaric Russia, reproaches the Muscovites for ignorance of the elementary truths about the dangers of baths: “they go to the bathhouse two or three times a week... their skin is from cold and heat changes and shrinks... In my opinion, this comes from the fact that they constantly sit in hot chambers, fire baths and stoves, and often take steam.” As we see, reason triumphed over the dark forces only within the boundaries of the spread of Western civilization.
However, there were some backward individuals there too. Thus, Elizabeth Pepys, the wife of a major official and author of the famous diary about the daily life of Londoners Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), after marriage refused to have intimacy with her husband until he finally washed. Of course, the husband did not agree immediately. But after three days, he gave up and put his health at risk of attack through “open pores.” Considering that in his diary Pepys describes himself as an extremely sociable person, it can be assumed that his wife’s reaction was very atypical for the time.
The medieval European was clearly less flea-ridden than the modern man, when the scope of plague pandemics was sharply reduced. Therefore, the reasons for the horrific mortality rate from this disease in the Middle Ages were something else. Maybe it was because there was no sewerage? However, in Novgorod, even before the plague of the 14th century, there was a developed sewer network with closed pipes. Nevertheless, the disease did not escape this city. And for a completely understandable reason: from France and further north it came mainly in the pulmonary form - from person to person. The European custom of pouring waste into open gutters may have contributed to the proliferation of rats, but had no effect on human infection.
About the benefits of harm
The plague caused the largest and most destructive epidemics in human history - comparable in consequences to world wars. However, even despite the lack of systematic medical knowledge, people already in the Middle Ages were able to develop a fairly expedient system of measures for quarantine and burial of the dead, which made it possible to meet subsequent plague waves fully armed. Not a single epidemic ever claimed the bulk of the population of large Western European countries, and we actually owe the rise of modern medicine to the heightened public interest in the problem of diseases, which began to study not only the treatises of the ancients, but also the human body itself.
There were also not the most successful steps along this path - the erroneous theory of miasma for a couple of centuries actually made the life of Europeans almost as stinking as Patrick Suskind described it in his “Perfume”. But even this was ultimately beneficial, forcing London and Paris in the second half of the 19th century to combat the "miasma" by creating efficient sewer systems and making big cities places where people could finally walk without holding their noses.
How scientific progress weaned the West from using soap and hot water
The culprit of the most destructive epidemics in the history of mankind, the plague, is only revealing its secrets. Only in 2015 did scientists learn that its pathogen became deadly (due to one random mutation) just ten thousand years ago, and began killing people en masse at the end of the Bronze Age. The rapid spread of the Black Death among medieval Europeans is usually explained by the fact that they hardly washed themselves. Is unsanitary conditions to blame for epidemics and how true is the idea of a stinking and lice-infested Middle Ages? Let's figure it out.
Catapult Throw
By the middle of the 14th century, Europe had not known the plague for almost eight hundred years in a row - the plague bacillus was not endemic to these territories, and the rats and fleas of certain species that carried it could not by themselves get from China to the opposite end of the continent.
But in 1346 they got a little help - with a catapult. The Horde, besieging the Genoese trading post of Kafa in the Crimea, was decimated by the plague, and they began to throw the bodies of the dead into the fortress. Fleas carried the bubonic plague to the besieged, and after the retreat of the Horde, the Genoese ships departed for the Mediterranean, carrying the “black death” further across the expanses of Europe.
This caused an unprecedented catastrophe: the countries most affected by the plague lost from a third to half of their population. The total number of deaths is estimated at several million people.
Since then, the plague has not left Europe: local fleas (rat fleas) and the rats themselves have become its permanent carriers. Major epidemics occurred in the Old World until the 18th century.
An era of ignorance and obscurantism?
The Middle Ages had a bad reputation. “The normal level of medieval atrocity” (Strugatsky), “the Middle Ages are an era of cultural regression, ignorance and obscurantism” and so on. In particular, it is generally accepted that with the fall of the Roman Empire in Europe they forgot how to make soap and abandoned the custom of washing. In general, “the church forbade washing, since nudity is a sin.” In addition, the lack of understanding that the disease is caused by bacteria, and not the will of God, made it difficult to declare quarantine and competently combat the epidemic.
Alas, these ideas, based on the best research of historical science of the 18th-19th centuries, did not stand up to the test of facts in the last century.
Even in early medieval Germany, where there were never any Roman traditions, the word “bath” is found in the Bavarian Truth of the 8th century, as well as in many other sources. Public baths were commonplace, where both men and women washed - after all, the idea of the inadmissibility of nudity in public places, attributed to the church, in fact arose in Europe only in the 19th century.
In Paris, back in the 13th century, the number of public baths numbered in the dozens, and the 12th-century British encyclopedist, monk Alexander Neckam wrote that he woke up in the morning from the too loud screams of the bathhouse attendants, inviting people to their establishments. The only thing that seriously embarrassed the church in these places was that they were often used somewhat for other purposes.
Finds in the Tyrolean castle of Lemberg showed that in medieval Europe there were not only bras depicted on many medieval miniatures (by the 15th century they looked like family panties), but also bras and women's panties of a completely modern look. Moreover, Michel Montaigne (16th century) mentions the manner of changing this linen with frequency, which, unfortunately, not all of our contemporaries practice.
The invention of quarantine
The idea that medieval people considered God’s wrath to be the only source of illness is also questionable, which is why they did not take measures against infection with the plague. Even before our era, it was known that “tiny creatures, invisible to the eye, floating in the air, enter the body through the mouth and nose, causing serious diseases.” The 15th century Venetian physician Girolamo Fracastoro also spoke about them, although less confidently. And although the Greek theory of miasma - harmful gases that poison the body and cause disease - was more widespread in the Middle Ages, it also logically led to quarantine measures.
The authorities of Genoa did not allow the sick into the city on pain of death. In Venice, since 1348, all arriving ships were forced to wait for a long time at sea (the incubation period of the plague is short), and all citizens who died from the disease were ordered to be buried at considerable depth on a specially designated island. The word “quarantine” itself comes from the medieval Venetian dialect and means 40 days of isolation for arriving ships. Moreover, the experience of organizing the anti-epidemic fight in Venice at that time is considered so exemplary even by today’s experts that they suggested drawing lessons from it in connection with the modern Ebola outbreak.
This experience was gradually borrowed by the whole of Europe. The “Great Plague” in London in the 17th century was accompanied by a ban on sick people leaving their homes for a quarantine period, as well as the introduction of standards on the depth of plague burials.
What progress has it made?
Plague pandemics sharply increased interest in medicine: all of Europe realized the importance of this science. Particularly inquisitive medical workers moved from familiarization with the ancient theories of Galen to practical experiments in autopsy of corpses and, from the second half of the 15th century, to their own theoretical work.
At the beginning of the modern era, doctors hypothesized that the miasma emanating from the earth caused diseases the more easily the more vulnerable the person himself was to them. Washing, which expands the pores of the body, greatly facilitates the passage of miasma into the body. Verdict: all these public baths and baths do not increase the chances of survival.
As Erasmus of Rotterdam summed up: “Nothing is more dangerous than when many expose themselves to the same vapor, especially when their bodies are exposed to the heat...” It seemed logical that if diseases were carried by miasmas or “the smallest organisms floating in the air” , then steam (or gas) speeds up this process - after all, no one yet knew that high temperature kills microbes! In addition, the Renaissance titan continues, many visitors to such places “suffer from infectious diseases, ... without a doubt, many of them have syphilis.” Like Erasmus, although the custom of visiting the baths continues (as of 1526), he is rapidly losing popularity: “25 years ago nothing in Brabant was so fashionable as visiting the baths, but now they have gone out of fashion everywhere, because syphilis has taught us to stay away from keep them away."
The amusing juxtaposition of the not entirely correct hypothesis of the emerging modern medicine on the epidemic of syphilis imported from America bore fruit: the opinion spread among the population that washing was harmful. Of course, the victory of reason over reckless washing was not immediate. The diary of the German merchant Lucas Rehm records that in May-June 1511 he washed 127 times - significantly more often than you and I.
There is nothing strange about this: back then, the owner often offered the guest the opportunity to wash together in a bathhouse or bathhouse (including during trade transactions), just as our contemporaries offer drinks. But the active propaganda of supporters of the fashionable theory of miasma changed the situation. Just three decades later, Henry VIII already prohibits baths in the vicinity of London.
The results of the transition from the Middle Ages to the New Age in hygienic terms were sad. Until recently, Europeans who washed regularly often stopped doing so altogether - doctors do not advise it! Considering that other recommendations of doctors of the time (for example, strict quarantine during the Great Plague of London in the 17th century) clearly worked, they listened to these too.
Pure Russian barbarians
Of course, there were those who remained on the sidelines of the high road of progress. Thus, at the end of the 16th century, an enlightened European, a learned Cambridge graduate, sent on a diplomatic mission to barbaric Russia, reproaches the Muscovites for ignorance of the elementary truths about the dangers of baths: “they go to the bathhouse two or three times a week... their skin is from cold and heat changes and shrinks... In my opinion, this comes from the fact that they constantly sit in hot chambers, fire baths and stoves, and often take steam.” As we see, reason won victory over the dark forces only within the boundaries of the spread of Western civilization. She refused intimacy with her husband until he finally washed himself. Of course, the husband did not agree immediately. But after three days, he gave up and put his health at risk of attack through “open pores.” Considering that in his diary Pepys describes himself as an extremely sociable person, it can be assumed that his wife’s reaction was very atypical for the time.
The medieval European was clearly less flea-ridden than the modern man, when the scope of plague pandemics was sharply reduced. Therefore, the reasons for the horrific mortality rate from this disease in the Middle Ages were something else. Maybe it was because there was no sewerage? However, in Novgorod, even before the plague of the 14th century, there was a developed sewer network with closed pipes. Nevertheless, the disease did not bypass this city. And for a completely understandable reason: from France and further north it came mainly in the pulmonary form - from person to person. The European custom of pouring waste into open gutters may have contributed to the proliferation of rats, but had no effect on human infection.
About the benefits of harm
The plague caused the largest and most destructive epidemics in human history - comparable in consequences to world wars. However, even despite the lack of systematic medical knowledge, people already in the Middle Ages were able to develop a fairly expedient system of measures for quarantine and burial of the dead, which made it possible to meet subsequent plague waves fully armed. Not a single epidemic ever claimed the bulk of the population of large Western European countries, and we actually owe the rise of modern medicine to the heightened public interest in the problem of diseases, which began to study not only the treatises of the ancients, but also the human body itself.
There were also not the most successful steps along this path - the erroneous theory of miasma for a couple of centuries actually made the life of Europeans almost as stinking as Patrick Suskind described it in his “Perfume”. But even this was ultimately beneficial, forcing London and Paris in the second half of the 19th century to combat the "miasma" by creating efficient sewer systems and making big cities places where people could finally walk without holding their noses.
Alexander Berezin
