Story

The most ancient state of the Eastern Slavs, known in history as Kievan Rus, took shape in the first half of the 9th century.

By this time, early feudal relations had formed in Russia. The ancient Slavic cities of Kiev, Smolensk, Polotsk, Chernihiv, Pskov, Novgorod (see Fig. 62) became large 'centers of craft and trade. The most important trading artery of ancient Russia was “the great way from the Varangians to the Greeks,” which connected Russia with Scandinavia and Byzantium.

An important event in the history of Russia was the adoption of Christianity as the state religion in 988. Lry Prince Vladimir (978-1015). This serious political act was not an accidental event: the emergence of social inequality and the formation of classes were objective historical prerequisites for replacing pagan polytheism with monotheism. Christianity in Russia has been known since the IX century. Many people close to Prince Igor (912-945) were Christians. The princess Olga after his wife Olga (945-969) visited Constantinople and was baptized, becoming the first Christian monarch in Russia. Of great importance for the dissemination of the ideas of Christianity in Kievan Rus were her long-standing ties with Bulgaria - an intermediary in the transfer of culture, writing: and religious literature. By the end of X century. Kievan Rus has already entered into interaction with the Byzantine economy and Christian culture.

The adoption of Christianity by Kievan Rus had important political consequences. It contributed to the strengthening of feudalism, the centralization of the state and its rapprochement with European Christian countries (Byzantium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, England, Germany, Georgia, Armenia, etc.), which was also promoted by dynastic marriages. These ties have a beneficial effect on the development of ancient Russian culture, education and science.

The origins of the culture of Kievan Rus are connected with the traditional culture of Slavic tribes, which with the development of statehood reached a high level, and later was enriched by the influence of Byzantine culture. Through Bulgaria and Byzantium, ancient and early medieval manuscripts arrived in Russia. They were translated into Slavic by the monks - the most educated people of that time. (Monks were the chroniclers Nikon, Nestor, Sylvester.) Written on parchment in the era of Kievan Rus, these books have survived to this day.

The first library in the Old Russian state was assembled in 1037 by Prince Yaroslav the Wise (1019-1054) - the third oldest son of Prince Vladimir. It was placed in the Sofia Cathedral, erected in Kiev in 1036 at the behest of Yaroslav the Wise to commemorate the victory over the Pechenegs at the place of a victorious battle. Yaroslav in every way contributed to the spread of literacy in Russia, the rewriting of books and their translation into the Slavic language. He himself knew 5 foreign languages ​​and “books of prileda and honoring (them) often in night and day”. His granddaughter Yanka Vsevolodovna in 1086 organized the first women's school at the Andreevsky monastery. Under Yaroslav the Wise, the Kievan state achieved wide international recognition. At that time, Metropolitan Hilarion wrote about the Kiev princes: "They were not masters in a bad country, but in a Russian one, which is known and heard in all parts of the earth."

The ancient Russian state existed for three centuries. After the death of the last Kiev Prince Mstislav Vladimirovich (1125–1132) —the son of Vladimir Monomakh, it disintegrated into several fiefdoms. A period of feudal fragmentation began, which contributed to the loss of political independence of the Russian lands as a result of the invasion of the Mongol-Tatar hordes under the leadership of Batu Khan (1208-1255), the grandson of Genghis Khan.

Healing Development

In Russia, folk medicine has long developed. Folk healers called healers. They are spoken of in Russkaya Pravda, the oldest of the Russian laws that have come down to us, which was drafted by Yaroslav the Wise (in the first quarter of the eleventh century) and subsequently was repeatedly copied and supplemented. Russkaya Pravda legislatively established the remuneration of medical staff: according to the laws of that time, a person who caused damage to the health of another person had to pay a fine to the state treasury and give the victim money to pay for treatment.

Healers passed their medical knowledge and secrets from generation to generation, from father to son in the so-called "family schools".

Medicines made from plants were very popular: wormwood, nettle, plantain, wild rosemary, “malicious hater.” (Bodyagi), linden-colored, birch leaves, ash bark, juniper berries, as well as onions, garlic, horseradish, birch sap, and many other folk healing tools.

Among the drugs of animal origin, a special place was occupied by honey, raw cod liver, mare's milk and deer antlers.

Found their place in the folk healing and healing agents of mineral origin. For abdominal pains, chrysolite stone rubbed into powder was ingested. To facilitate childbirth, women wore jewelery from a wagon. The healing properties of vinegar and copper sulfate, turpentine and saltpeter, “sulfur stone” and arsenic, silver, mercury, antimony and other minerals were known. Russian people have long known also about the healing properties of "sour water." Its ancient name Narzan, which has survived to the present day, means “bogatyr-water”.

Subsequently, the experience of traditional medicine was summarized in numerous herbalists and physicians (Fig. 66), which for the most part were compiled after the adoption of Christianity in Russia and the spread of literacy. Unfortunately, many handwritten medical books died during wars and other disasters. A little over 250 ancient Russian herbalists and healers have come down to our day. They contain descriptions of numerous traditional methods of Russian healing as from the times of Christian Russia, 6avle and Kiev, and later - in Novgorod, Smolensk, Lvov. The monastery hospital of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, the first Russian monastery founded in the first half of the 11th century, was widely known. in the vicinity of Kiev and got its name from the caves (Pecher), in which the monks originally settled.

From all over Russia, the wounded and sick with various illnesses went to the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, and many found healing there. For the seriously ill at the monastery there were special rooms (hospitals) where the monks who looked after the sick were on duty. Monastic chronicles (“Kiev-Pe-Chersky Paterik”, XII century) report several monks, ascetics who became famous for their medical art. Among them is the “most wonderful doctor” Anthony (XI century) who came from Athos, who personally took care of the sick, giving them his healing potion; Rev. Alimpy ^ \ v.4), who drank the masses of the irish, and Rev. Agapit (died 1095) —the closest disciple of Rev. Anthony.

Agapit healed for free and dwelt on the darkest works, it would be "tolerable and cordial towards him, to do everything in his power to cure the patient and not to care about personal enrichment or professional vanity."

At the same time, healing in ancient Russia was not a church monopoly: along with the monastery there was also more ancient folk (worldly) medicine. However, at this stage of the history, pagan healers (magicians, magicians, wizards and witches) were declared to be servants of the devil and, as a rule, were persecuted.

Thus, the “Kiev-Pechersk Paterik” contains the first specific information about medical ethics in ancient Russia: a healer must be a model of philanthropy up to self-sacrifice, for the sake of the patient to level the illness by pulse and outwardly, due to the patient and was very popular among the people. And at the prince's court in Chernigov in the XII century. served as a famous healer Peter the Syrian (i.e. Syrian). Healers have widely used the experience of traditional medicine in their practice.

Some old Russian mona-styr hospitals were also centers of enlightenment: they taught medicine, collected Greek and Byzantine manuscripts. In the process of translating manuscripts from Greek and Latin: the monks supplemented them with their knowledge based on the experience of Russian-folk healing.

One of the most popular books of the XI. was "Izbornik Svyatoslav". Translated from the Greek in Bulgaria, he corresponded twice in Rus (1073, 1076) for the son of Yaroslav the Wise Prince Svyatoslav, from which he got his name. “Izbornik”, in its content, went beyond the initial task - to connect social relations in Russia with the norms of the new Christian mora-n ”- and acquired the features of an encyclopedia. It also describes some diseases that correspond to the time about their causes, treatment and prevention, provides tips on vitality (for example, “the strength in the vegetables is great”, or “drinking immense” in itself is “rabies”) and contain recommendations. body clean, systematically wash, perform ablutions.

The Izbornik speaks of rezelnik (surgeons) who can “cut tissue”, amputate limbs, other sick or: dead parts of the body, do therapeutic cauterization with red-hot iron, treat the damaged place with herbs and ointments. Are described. Cleaner knives for dissection and medical sharpeners. At the same time, in the Izbornik there are illnesses incurable, before which the medicine of that time was powerless.

In the ancient Russian literature of the XII century. there is information about women-doctors, grandmas-bone-cutters, who skillfully performed massage, about attracting women to care for the sick.

In terms of the development of sanitary affairs, the Old Russian state in the 10th — 14th centuries. ahead of Western Europe. During the archaeological excavations of ancient Novgorod, documents relating to 1346 were found, which reported on the existence of hospitals for civilians in Novgorod and on the alchemists who were involved in the preparation of medicines.

In the territory of ancient Novgorod, many-tier (up to 30 floorings) wooden pavements created in the 10th-11th centuries were opened and studied, over 2,100 buildings with hygienic items were found there, pottery and wooden catchment basins and drainage systems were discovered - one of the oldest in Northern Europe ( Fig. 68). Note that in Germany the water supply system was built in the XV century, and the first pavements were laid in the XIV century.

An integral part of the medical and sanitary life of ancient Russia was the Russian steam bath (Fig. 69), which has long been considered an excellent means of healing. Bath was the cleanest room in the estate. That is why, along with its direct appointment, the bath was also used as a place where the birth was taken, the first care of the newborn was performed, sprains were reduced and bleedings were performed, massage was performed and “pots were placed”, cold and joint diseases were treated, and rubbed with medicinal ointments for skin diseases.

The first description of the Russian steam bath is contained in the chronicles of Nestor (XI cent.). Centuries later, the famous Russian obstetrician N. M. Maksimovich-Ambodik (1744–1812) wrote: “The Russian bath is still considered an indispensable remedy for many diseases. In medical science there is no such medicine, which would be equal to the power ... bath "(1783).

In the Middle Ages, Europe was the scene of devastating epidemics. Along with numerous descriptions of the diseases of princes and individual members of the upper class (boyars, clergy), the Russian chronicles contain terrifying pictures of large epidemics of plague and other contagious diseases, which in Russia were called "pestilence", "morons" or "general illnesses". So, in 1092 in Kiev "many people died with various illnesses". In the central part of Russia, “in the summer of 6738 (1230) ... there was a sea in Smolensk, Rishi 4 poor women in two would put 16000, and in the third 7000, and in the fourth 9000. But evil was two years old. The same summer there was a sea in Novgorod: from the glad (hunger). And the other people are cutting their brother and poison. ” Doom! thousands of Smolensk residents testify that the disease was extremely infectious and accompanied by a high mortality rate. The chronicle also speaks of the “great sea” on sea in 1417: “.. the sea was terrible for people in Veliky Novgorod and e Pskov, and in Ladoze, and in Russia”.

There was a common opinion among the people that I am an ordinary fad that arises from the natural forces, changes in the position of the stars, the wrath of the gods, changes -: - years. In Russian folk tales, m * was portrayed as a woman of thunderous growth with loose hair? with white clothes, cholera - in the image of an evil old woman with a distorted face. The misunderstanding of the fact that dirt and poverty is a social danger, led to non-compliance with the rules of hygiene, exacerbated the epidemic: followed by hunger. In an effort to stop the general disease of the people went to the most desperate measures. For example, when in Novgorod in the XIV century. A plague broke out, Go-eohanes built the Andrei Stratelates Church for 24 hours, which has been preserved to this day. However, neither the construction of churches, nor prayers saved the people from disasters - the epidemics in Europe at the time claimed tens of thousands of human lives.

The largest number of epidemics in Russia falls on the period of the Mongol-Tatar yoke (1240-1480).

The Mongol-Tatar yoke plundered and devastated the Russian lands, as well as the states of Central Asia and the Caucasus. The unceasing struggle of the Russian people forced the conquerors to abandon the idea of ​​creating their own governing bodies in Russia. Russia retained its statehood, but the long-term oppression and ruin of the country by the Golden Horde led to the subsequent lagging of the Russian lands in their development from the countries of Western Europe.

One of the centers of Russian medicine of that time was the Kirillo-Belo-Zer monastery, founded in 1397 and not subjected to enemy invasion. In the walls of the monastery at the beginning of the XV century. Monk Kirill Belozersky (1337–1427) translated from the Greek “Galinovo to Hippocrates” (Galen’s comments on the Hippocratic Collection). At the monastery there were several hospitals. One of them is currently restored and protected by the state as an architectural monument.

In the XIII — XIV centuries. new cities strengthened in the Russian lands: Tver, Nizhny Novgorod, Moscow, Kolomna, Kostroma, etc. Moscow became the head of the union of the Russian lands.