The dream of a universal cure - a cure for all diseases is not one thousand years old … The search for "elixirs of life" was carried out in the days of the greatness of Babylon and Egypt, and later they were continued by medieval alchemists
This dream is still alive today, and demand, as you know, gives rise to supply, and not a year passes without another sensational message appearing in the media: “Yes! Found! Humanity is saved from disease and death itself!"
IN THE PHOTO: On the branches of the Egyptian Tree of Life, the embodiment of the Great Mother Earth - Isis, distributing the elixir of immortality
The organizers of each such campaign are not prone to innovation and prefer the old proven options. Potential consumers "miraculous remedy" are most often presented as a product produced by means of either "newly discovered ancient knowledge" or, on the contrary, as "the latest development of secret laboratories of military (espionage) departments." Involvement in the secrets of the medical traditions of ancient cults or in the secrets of powerful special services allows answering all questions with the mysterious: “Shhhhhhh! I am not authorized to answer, for there are too many lives at stake, bound by secrecy obligations. " How old (and reliable!) Such methods are is evidenced by a story that took place in the capital of the Russian Empire, the glorious city of St. Petersburg, more than 100 years ago, now already in the century before last.in St. Petersburg newspapers flashed messages about the “newest discovery of Mr. M. P. Gachkovsky ", who offered the most respectable public a new medicine, which he named" Vitalin ". The creator of the miracle remedy recommended it in the form of an ointment and medicine, as well as subcutaneous injections and claimed that it was suitable for the treatment of any diseases associated with rotting flesh.
“Vitalin” and its inventor were praised in every possible way by the popularizers of progress, and the famous writer and publicist Professor Wagner was especially zealous in this. It was he who explained to the Petersburg public why Mr. Gachkovsky kept the composition of his medicine secret and refused to answer questions about how it works on the body. The professor himself did not know the composition of "Vitalin" and the principle of its action, but he found positive aspects in this, citing the case of Koch's discovery as an example. The scientist was urged on, required to publish the results of the work before they passed a reliable test. Koch succumbed to persuasion and prodding, and these premature revelations led to a complete fiasco of his discovery. * Nevertheless, Professor Wagner was quite confident in the usefulness of "Vitalin", which, in his opinion, "has a healthful effect on Wednesday,in which the disease develops, and thereby paralyzes its further development."
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It was through Wagner that Gachkovsky revealed the following revelations to the world: “I invented the tool, working on it for six years, regardless of labor and costs. Why would I give my labor for free to all pharmacists, for general use this healing remedy ?! " Wagner found the inventor's mercantile reasoning "to a certain extent fair." Since an invention can bring a lot of money to everyone who starts to produce it, why not pay the inventor “several hundred thousand rubles” first? Thus, the size of Mr. Gachkovsky's claims was declared, which were prevented by "conservative skeptics with medical degrees". Wagner wrote indignantly about how Gachkovsky was offered to conduct two experiments at the Institute of Experimental Medicine, "making impossible demands":cure anthrax and rabies with Vitalin. According to Wagner, these diseases are "completely incurable," so it is not surprising that the experiments ended in failure. However, after these unsuccessful tests, in order to dispel "some bewilderment that arose among the metropolitan public," Gachkovsky promised to reveal "the secret of" Vitalin "… someday". But no one heard this last addition, and therefore everyone was sure that we were talking about the coming days, at most weeks.that we are talking about the coming days, at most weeks.that we are talking about the coming days, at most weeks.
Professor Wagner wrote his articles promoting "Vitalin", but between the lines he blurted out that he himself "did not have a chance to be convinced of the preserving properties of the medicine" and knew about them only from the words of Gachkovsky himself. "Vitalin", they say, has the ability to resist the decomposition of blood and body tissues, and this allows you to stop all the disease processes caused by infection with putrefactive substances, purulent bodies and microbes. The most important argument for Wagner was the cure of consumption with the help of Vitalin by Gachkovsky himself, and in addition, the inventor provided him with written testimonies from persons whom he used his remedy. For example, with the help of a new medicine, the French military agent Mulin, who caught it in the tropics, was able to cure yellow fever. The disease did not respond to treatment with either antipyrine or phenacitin,but Mr. Gachkovsky cured Monsieur Moulin! According to Wagner and Gachkovsky, "Vitalin" acted as an antipyretic, perfectly treated diseases of the nervous system and quickly restored the patient's strength.
Wagner ended his eulogies with the “elixir” as follows: “Convinced by the stories of others, I tried Vitalin’s actions on myself, and I can say: I feel as cheerful as ten years ago. Although, for the sake of truth, it should be noted that Vitalin did not cure my illness, and I am entirely indebted to the help of my old friend, Professor Yu. T. Chunovsky.
The newspapermen sensed a sensation, and soon Mr. Gachkovsky himself was giving out numerous interviews. “He looks 40–45 years old,” the newspapers wrote, “but in fact he is already 50. Five years ago he was dying of consumption, and now it is hard to believe that this is so. Gachkovsky showed us his photographs taken then, and in them he looks like a deep old man who has not long left to live. Since then, he has changed so much that it is difficult to recognize him: his face is round and smooth, he is well-fed, and his muscles are iron. “I worked up all this thanks to Vitalin,” explains Mr. Gachkovsky himself.
Gachkovsky "took out the main secrets of the new remedy from China, where he went to travel, hoping to find salvation there from a fatal disease." Having tested on himself an Asian medicine, which in a short time healed consumption, he decided to make it the property of first the Russian people, and then of all mankind. But first I wanted to “get what I wanted”, which is why I didn’t want to reveal my secrets ahead of time, because “the recipe for the composition of Vitalin is so simple that you will all gasp when the time comes and I publish it”.
Reporters followed every step of the "inventor" and soon learned the address where he was receiving those who were attracted to him by Professor Wagner's publications. Although Mr. Gachkovsky did not have permission for treatment, he took advantage of the suffering and took a lot of money from them: from 25 rubles for an appointment to 100-150 rubles for a course of treatment. The author of "Vitalin" did not particularly hide that he was treating, and even flaunting, he declared to the newspapermen: "Among my patients there are many representatives of the high society of St. Petersburg." The most curious thing is that he did not lie here - the Chinese and Indian "mountain exotic" at the end of the 19th century. were popular no less than a hundred years later. Both now and then, miracles and healings were certainly expected from all "descended from Tibet". "Initiated into secret knowledge" did not force themselves to beg for a long time,and upon receiving the money, they immediately began treatment by the most mysterious means.
So the treatment with Vitalin required keeping secrets, which gave him an additional charm of secrecy, made Gachkovsky's patients feel like they were involved in the great Tibetan secret. There were no other reasons for the inventor of "Vitalin" to hide, no one in St. Petersburg would dare to touch him, since he undertook to treat the mayor himself - P. L. Gresser. "Conservative" doctors insisted on amputating the general's leg, but friends sang to the patient about the miracles of "Vitalin", the newspapers confirmed the rumors, and Gresser risked trying. It was a triumph of the idea of "vitalizing" Russia, but it also caused the collapse of the "invention". Vitalin did not help Gresser, and the developed gangrene killed the general. The newspapers got his words, said shortly before his death: “I'm an old fool! Instead of immediately expelling this scoundrel Gachkovsky administratively,I decided to test his accursed Vitalin on myself and now I am paying for it."
The same newspapers, which not long ago enthusiastically praised Vitalin, now rushed to "refute and expose." Reporters quickly tracked down Gachkovsky's patients and asked them to describe how they felt while taking the new healing agent. All respondents agreed on only one thing: Vitalin looks like a transparent liquid. But when they were asked about the taste, they answered differently: some thought that the taste resembled almonds, others - wine, others - tea, and to others even … herring. Not satisfied with these "testimonies", a reporter from the newspaper "Peterburzhets" signed up for an appointment with Gachkovsky and, having tasted the "miracle cure", pronounced his verdict: ordinary Neva water, which, obviously, is ".
Scientific observers of major newspapers did not stand aside, who had previously “executed Vitalin's problem with inattention”. First of all, they attacked Professor Wagner as the most active propagandist of the "new means". “We in no way deny the experience and authority of Professor Wagner as a specialist in his field - he is an excellent popularizer, writing good stories, albeit with a somewhat excessive addiction to spiritualism, colloquially called“devilry”. Probably, the professor himself will agree that, having undertaken to judge the meaning of the "new remedy", he has invaded an area that is little familiar to him, since he is not a specialist doctor, and his competence in matters of medicine can be considered questionable. " (Wagner was a professor, but not a professor of medical sciences!)
“Wagner writes in his articles that Vitalin has an effect on the size of blood cells: it makes them take a wavy shape, increases them by one tenth of a millimeter. There is nothing surprising in these phenomena - this happens when exposed to many reagents, as well as during drying and evaporation. But the size of the increase in blood balls indicated by Wagner is really amazing and makes you remember the very devilry in which the professor of such a doc: the fact is that the size of blood balls are measured in microns, and an increase in them by tenths of a millimeter means an increase in tens of times, but to take this at its word is somewhat difficult. If the professor had in mind microns, then the increase and decrease of the balls by one tenth of them is an ordinary phenomenon that occurs by itself, without the influence of any reagents."
“In Wagner's articles, there is no evidence that Gachkovsky was cured of consumption by Vitalin. Who can prove that he was ill at all and that the photographs were taken from him? The certificate of the French military agent Moulin, issued to Gachkovsky, is worth little - Moulin is an officer, not a medic, and cannot competently judge in such matters. Finally, the main question: who is this very Mr. Gachkovsky, what secrets were revealed to him in the Chinese mountains, why did he spread such mystery around his means?"
The answers to these questions were found surprisingly quickly. As soon as the darkness of "mystery and omnipotence" was dispelled, the real facts became known, and they were such that many, very many ardent supporters of Gachkovsky's remedy felt unbearably ashamed, and they probably asked themselves, like the late Gresser: "And how is this I, an adult, fell for this bait?"
"Who is this Gachkovsky - a forty-year-old man, shaved, with a trimmed mustache, a smoothly cropped head, limping slightly when walking?" - journalists asked. And they immediately answered: “At first, Mr. Gachkovsky was much more modest in his aspirations. His first invention was a boot wax, which, despite its excellent properties, did not surprise anyone. Then there was an amazing lubricant for cars, but attempts to make money on it also failed. The inventor then had a pretty hard time: the funds invested in the creation of wax and ointment did not return, and therefore urgently had to look for a place. Finally he was lucky, and he got a job as a foreman of one of the provincial railways. Ambitions demanded action from him, and he, having changed service on several railways, ended up in St. Petersburg. Here he had to take a dash again, and he was in direct poverty, but did not abandon his intrigues. As the saying goes, “the need for invention is cunning,” and the retired railroad foreman tirelessly ran around the houses of the Petersburg capitalists and industrialists, offering them his wax and ointment, as well as a new alloy of cupronickel with bronze. Judging by this set, he loved to mix everything a little, be it ointments or metals! But he did not manage to interest those “tempting goods” among those who could invest money in their production. Then, rummaging through his exported reserves from the provinces, he found there nothing less than a "philosopher's stone" with which it was possible to obtain gold. A “special powder” for the same purpose was attached to the philosopher's stone. But Mr. Gachkovsky was not lucky - even the dream of the medieval alchemists, the philosopher's stone itself, did not shake the strongholds of the souls of the capital's moneybags poisoned by skepticism and cynicism."
Most likely, these failures followed because he was looking for his buyers in a different environment than where they lived, - Gachkovsky realized this after the failure of several of his scientific and technical scams. He put back the wax, ointments, alloys and the "philosopher's stone" with the powder attached to it and tried to give hypnosis sessions that were fashionable then. And again, failure awaited him! This kind of charlatanism is a delicate matter that requires certain skills, and Gachkovsky did not possess them. Perhaps the public was distrustful of the color of his hair and eyes - Gachkovsky was red-haired and gray-eyed, and according to the beliefs of that time, only burning brunettes with piercing dark brown, almost black eyes, giving the effect of "demonic, bottomless gaze", possessed hypnotic abilities.
This failure, however, helped him find a real gold mine - having turned in a specific world of spiritualists, hypnomaniacs and admirers of Eastern religions and practices, he discovered that in St. Petersburg there was a great demand for healers of all kinds. And the darker his explanations were, the more willingly they believed him! The result of this discovery was the invention of "Vitalin". Rather, as Gachkovsky argued, he himself did not invent anything - the secret of the remedy that saved him from consumption was revealed to him by a wandering fakir whom he met on the shore of one of the mountain lakes in Chinese Tibet. It is understandable: it is beyond the power of an ordinary person to invent a real miracle remedy, but to join the centuries-old ancient knowledge may be lucky. Then everything developed according to the classical scheme:Gachkovsky soon managed to interest several exalted admirers of the mysterious with his stories, among whom were Professor Wagner and his friends, who began, as they would say now, to "spin" Vitalin, spreading exciting rumors in salons and publishing their articles in newspapers. Rumors spread, and newspaper scandals only fueled interest in the topic. Patients, ready to pay any money, piled up. But, as we already know, the matter went too far: when the mayor himself turned to Gachkovsky, the charlatan did not dare to refuse him treatment, but could not cure him …and newspaper scandals only fueled interest in the topic. Patients, ready to pay any money, piled up. But, as we already know, the matter went too far: when the mayor himself turned to Gachkovsky, the charlatan did not dare to refuse him treatment, but could not cure him …and newspaper scandals only fueled interest in the topic. Patients, ready to pay any money, piled up. But, as we already know, the matter went too far: when the mayor himself turned to Gachkovsky, the charlatan did not dare to refuse him treatment, but could not cure him …
However, he was not going to give up so easily, and in response to the accusations, he published the recipe for Vitalin. Well, not the recipe itself, but a general description of the composition, the basis of which was the so-called "borax" - a rock, allegedly mined only in Tibet, from the bottom and on the shores of mountain lakes. He mixed this borax in a ratio of 4 to 5 with glycerin, added grated horn of some mountain ram, and "according to science" called this mixture "boroglycerin". Professor Wagner immediately reappeared with his comments, much touched to the quick by the fact that he was thoroughly “snapped off” in reputable newspapers: “No other medicine has such preservative abilities as borax,” he wrote. like borax, the decomposition of tissues and blood. Borax is capable of acting on the walls of blood vessels and contracting them,possesses the precious property - to destroy pain and, moreover, very quickly. The use of "Vitalin" as a pain reliever is quite rational, as it destroys hypermia, the cause of pain. " Wagner called the death of Gresser "an accident resulting from the use of Vitalin by inept hands."
First of all, the experts refuted the assertion that the source of the borax is the Tibetan and Indian lakes: “This is only partly true, deposits of this ore are found in other places. And most importantly, borax can also be produced at chemical plants. " (Borax is sodium tetraborate, in nature it occurs as a sediment in some salt lakes, has an antiseptic effect and is used in medicine. - Ed.) It turned out that the recipe for boroglycerin did not need to be asked from the Tibetan sages, it was made back in 1882 Frenchman Le Bon, mixing 100 parts of borax with 150 parts of glycerin. The only difference is that Gachkovsky's Vitalin produced 120 parts of borax per 150 glycerin, and even grated horn. The professor's reasoning about hypermia as the only cause of pain caused ridicule,and all other arguments were called "sounding at least strange from the lips of a person with a university degree."
The last bet of the "healer-inventor" was the statement that the fakir's secret was not in the composition of the ointment, but in a certain mystical ritual "charging the remedy with healing energy." But then he went so far that his most ardent admirers from among the educated people recoiled from him, and the metropolitan police began to take an active interest in him. By the summer, all talk about "Vitalin" and Gachkovsky had disappeared from the pages of newspapers at once, and what happened in the future with this man and his "elixir for all diseases" remains unknown to this day.
