The invention of vaccination against smallpox, a deadly highly contagious infectious disease, is usually viewed from only one side - as a blessing. But there is another side to the coin - the owner of the secret of vaccination has the opportunity to safely and with impunity use smallpox for military purposes as a bacteriological weapon of mass destruction of the enemy. Smallpox (formerly called smallpox) is a highly contagious viral infection that affects only humans. It is caused by two types of viruses: Variola major (mortality 20-40%, according to some sources - up to 90%) and Variola minor (mortality 1-3%) via
In the 1720s, the British were the first Europeans to obtain the secret of smallpox vaccination in Turkey, and after being tested on humans, they began to vaccinate the chosen few:
"… the Princess of Wales, to whom variolation was already familiar, hastened to take measures for the earliest possible inoculation of smallpox to her two daughters. For the safe achievement of this goal, it was decided to carry out a number of preliminary experiments, similar to those that the Nazis conducted in concentration camps two centuries later, that is. “In public.” Experiments were carried out on August 20, 1721 on six criminals sentenced to death by Dr. Maitland in the presence of the physician Slenser, and were crowned with complete success, since one of these criminals was sent to Hertford, where it was raging at that time the smallpox epidemic, “remained completely untouched by the disease.” In the same way, an attempt to inoculate smallpox again to one of the same experimental prisoners was unsuccessful, and then five more orphans of the St. Gem parish were vaccinated, the results were also positive. Then they just started this operation on members of the royal family."
Having received such an advantage - being in complete safety, you can destroy entire nations. What the British in the 18th century did with the Indians, slipping them things infected with smallpox and introducing smallpox patients to them. Epidemics cleared territories more efficiently than firearms.
Fact 1. By the beginning of the first half of the 18th century, the British already widely practiced vaccination against smallpox, but only for selected individuals, which allowed them to safely use smallpox as a bacteriological weapon of mass destruction against the Indians of North America, for example, in 1763 by General Amherst:
In his letter dated June 29, 1763, which Amherst addressed to Colonel G. Buke, who was preparing an expedition in Lancaster to help the besieged fort, the general wrote: “Is it possible to spread a smallpox epidemic among the tribes of the rebellious Indians? We must use any trick to weaken them. (Memorandum by Sir Jeffery Amherst, May 4, 1763, HBP, series 21634, 161. Quoted in Grenier J. First Way of War … P. 144).
The same General Jeffrey Amherst, who commanded British troops in North America in the 18th century.
From a letter from General Amherst dated July 16, 1763 to the same Colonel Bouquet: "You must do everything possible to infect the Indians with blankets, just as you must use any other method to eradicate this disgusting race." (Bouquet to Amherst, July 13, 1763, ibid., Series 21634, 215. Quoted in Grenier J. First Way of War … P. 145).
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No sooner said than done. Captain S. Ekver during negotiations on June 24 with two representatives (Heart of the Turtle and Mamalti) of the Delaware besieging the fort gave them two blankets and a handkerchief that belonged to people with smallpox. (Anderson F. Crucible of War … P. 541-542). After this quote, a certain defender of the British, trying with all their might to grease them, writes literally the following: “Thus, there is no reason to ascribe to General Amherst the use of biological weapons against the Indians.… It is unclear whether the smallpox epidemic is connected with Ecker's“gift”. Although the smallpox epidemic did rage among the Indians in the spring and autumn of 1763, undoubtedly weakening their military potential, there is no reason to associate it with the blankets transferred from Fort Pitt. source
Then these actions were not standardized by any international laws. All means are good in war, so a true gentleman, General Amherst, dealt with his enemies as he saw fit.
A rhetorical question immediately arises - has no one else ever used such a miracle weapon? Of course, you can find a lot of such examples, if you are not too lazy to google.
For example, in January 1788, the British founded the first settlement in Australia - the future Sydney, bringing prisoners from their prisons there to settle. Then, as commissioned, "Shortly after 1789, a severe smallpox epidemic broke out among the Aborigines in the immediate vicinity of Sydney, as a result of which thousands of them died." via Well it is necessary to be able to take smallpox safe and sound to Australia, when the voyage lasts so long that convicts on the way die from scurvy caused by vitamin C deficiency, and this requires at least 2-3 months.
But in this article we are primarily interested in the smallpox epidemic in Moscow in 1771-72, disguised as a "plague epidemic."
Apparently it was no coincidence that soon after the successful use by the British of smallpox bacteriological weapons of mass destruction against the Indians in the spring and summer of 1763, already on September 1, 1763, Catherine-2 signed a manifesto on the establishment in Moscow of the "Syrupal House" (later renamed the Orphanage), in which, since 1768, experiments were carried out on smallpox vaccination on orphans-babies.
Fact 2. In St. Petersburg in 1768, a doctor Dimsdal who arrived from England, following the example of Catherine-2, carried out general vaccinations against smallpox. In the same year, suspicious local experiments with smallpox vaccinations in the Foundling Home for Foundling Orphans began in Moscow.
Having received from the related (kinship through the Glucksburg branch of the Oldenburg dynasty) the Hanoverian dynasty (see Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Windsor) the secret of vaccination against smallpox, the Holstein-Gottorp branch of the Oldenburg dynasty, under the leadership and following the example of Catherine II, immediately carried out a massacre in 1768 In Petersburg.
“According to Dimsdale's calculations, only in St. Petersburg, not counting Moscow, where he soon went at the request of Catherine II, about 140 aristocrats were inoculated.
On November 10, Pavel Petrovich was also vaccinated with smallpox. And on November 17, on the eve of the promulgation of the manifesto on Russia's declaration of war on the Ottoman Porte, Catherine II gladly described in a letter to gr. IG Chernyshev the results of his brilliant victory: “Now we have two conversations only: the first is about the war, and the second is about vaccination. Starting from me and my son, who is also recovering, there is no noble house in which there were not several vaccinated, and many regret that they had smallpox and cannot be in fashion. " via (Of course, in the war with Turkey, the smallpox epidemic appeared under the name "plague")
Similarly to the British, who conducted experiments on orphans at St. James's orphanage, the doctors of Catherine II conducted experiments on foundling babies in the Moscow Orphanage (Orphanage).
Fact 3. In December 1770, the first patients with "ulcers" appear in the military hospital in Lefortovo, which is only five kilometers up the Yauza from the Moscow Orphanage.
In 1768-74. St. Petersburg's Romanovs-Oldenburgskys are waging another war with Turkey. During the hostilities in Moldova and Wallachia, an epidemic of a seemingly "plague" breaks out, but we now understand that this was another use of smallpox as a weapon of mass destruction and the disease was spread by the military doctors of Catherine II.
Naturally, no one publicly announced this, therefore they write that the physician Gustav Orreus was entrusted with the fight against the plague in Moldova and Wallachia, and in 1771 he was sent for the same purpose to Moscow via
Gorelova L. E. from the Moscow Medical Academy named after I. M. Sechenova sagaciously writes:
“Thus, the plague, which more than once appeared on the borders of the Russian state, rarely reached the interior regions, especially Moscow and St. Petersburg. An exception was the plague in Moscow in 1771–73. Then Russian troops entered Moldavia, where the plague broke out. Now one can only speculate: was it an accident or a special "bacteriological sabotage". Contemporaries wrote: "The pestilence spread like a flame driven by the wind." ("Plague in Moscow 1771-73"). Russian medical journal).https://www.rmj.ru/articles/istoriya_meditsiny/Chum…
Apparently, the military doctors of Catherine-2 understood perfectly well that this was not a plague, otherwise a special protective suit of the "plague doctor", well-known since the Middle Ages, would have been mentioned at least somewhere:
Plague spreads mainly through the bites of various fleas infected with the plague bacillus and such a suit is very suitable for protecting against them.
But the doctors did exactly the opposite! In the already cited article by L. Ye. Gorelova, we read: “Being an active member of the Commission for the Prevention and Treatment of Pestilence, D. S. Samoilovich experienced the disinfecting effect of various agents. And in order to prove the effectiveness of fumigation, he wore clothes taken from those who died from the plague. " What is this if not a demonstration of your immunity to smallpox? After all, there was no immunity from the plague, and such a gallant doctor would have had enough of one bite from a plague flea … But no, all doctors survived more than one epidemic of "plague" and each published a book in which it was proved that it was the plague. These are the tenacious, writing, and handing doctors.
It should be added that it was not possible to find any signs of mortality from the "plague" not only among doctors, the "plague" was also not subject to the troops of Catherine-2, her dignitaries and other elect. But the masses died perfectly from this "plague" like flies from pesticides.
Fact 4. On March 24, 1771, Ekaterina-2 issued in St. Petersburg a decree on the organization for the first time in Russian practice of cemeteries - specialized places of mass graves long BEFORE the epidemic spread in Moscow;
The first to draw a conclusion about the epidemiological danger of the disease that appeared in the Moscow "military hospital" was the professor of this hospital K. O. Yagelsky. In his report to the Moscow police chief's office dated March 9, 1771, he wrote about this as follows: "… from all the circumstances it is evident from the adherence to others, and that many die from it, it is harmful, I have no idea about this, which is what I report." …
All sources found claim that the "plague" epidemic in Moscow broke out in the summer of 1771. Hundreds of people died every day in August, and about a thousand in September. The peak of the epidemic fell precisely in September-November, when about 40 thousand people died out of 60 thousand who died during the entire epidemic.
The fact that just two weeks after Yagelsky's first signal was already issued a decree of Catherine-2 (or the Senate?) Of March 24, 1771 on the organization of mass graves, can testify only to one thing: Catherine-2 was given a signal that "The process has started" and she gave the command to prepare. That is, the man-made nature of the smallpox epidemic was masked for obvious reasons.
The aforementioned decree of March 24, 1771 is actually a landmark - in fact, the beginning of the cemetery business in Russia should be counted from it. Prior to that, in the country of the dead, they were buried next to their homes (this is where the tradition of bringing the dead into the house before burial comes from), directly in churches or near them. According to the decree of Catherine-2, it was forbidden to bury those who died from the plague within the city and commanded "to allocate for them special cemeteries outside the city and to build at least small wooden churches on them for the first time."
In most cases, the March decree is not mentioned at all, and the decree of the Senate of November 17, 1771 is considered the starting point for the organization of cemeteries, which appeared simultaneously with the decision of the question of recalling Grigory Orlov to St. Petersburg (see Fact 9). It was good to find the texts of the decrees and compare, the November one will most likely be some kind of summing up the results of the March one.
One way or another, the fact that Grigory Orlov first organized numerous specialized cemeteries in Moscow back in September-October 1771 (see Fact 8) confirms that he had clear instructions and that he fulfilled the March decree.
Fact 5. In the documents of that time, the disease that caused the epidemic was not called the plague, but the "ulcer" or "pestilence".
The diagnosis of the "plague" appeared only in the later published suspicious works of Samoilovich, published in French in Paris and Shafonsky, published in Russian, which for those times was the only exception for medical treatises. Other doctors, the already mentioned Orreus, Yagelsky and others, also attended to the writing of such treatises in chorus.
Fact 6. Vaccination against smallpox creates lifelong immunity, although now at least one revaccination is recommended for reliability, but there is still no reliable vaccine against plague, the first vaccine was made by Khavkin in the early 20th century.
Fact 7. Ekaterina-2, without fear, sends her favorite G. G. to the center of the plague epidemic. Orlova and almost all of their elite Life Guards troops, although there was no vaccination against the plague then.
Sometimes they write that Catherine-2 was bored with Grigory Orlov and she wanted to get rid of him in this way. Let's admit. But I wonder what kind of perverted mind can come up with a reason for sending Catherine-2 to the inevitable death of her main power base - four Life Guards regiments at once?
September 21, 1771 "Seeing the former state of Moscow, and that a great number of people are dying from clinging diseases," Catherine manifesto announced the sending to Moscow of "a person, our attorney," Count Grieg. Grieg. Orlov, chosen "for his rather well-known jealousy, diligence and loyalty to us and the fatherland." Orlov was given "full ability"; all institutions had to obey him, he "had an entrance" to the Senate of the Moscow departments, he knew the empress's will, "in order to stop, the death of the human race would be enough to stop the death of the human race."
On the day of the publication of the manifesto on September 21, Orlov left for Moscow and, despite the muddy roads, on September 26 was already there. Count Grieg. Grieg. he himself "begged" the empress to send him to Moscow. "I agreed," wrote Ekaterina, "to such a wonderful and diligent act of his, although it hurts me very much in view of the danger he is exposed to." On the eve of his departure, Orlov had a conversation with Lord Cathcart: “It doesn't matter whether there is a plague or not,” he said, “in any case, he will leave the next morning; he had long awaited an opportunity to render a significant service to the empress and the fatherland; he is convinced that the main misfortune in Moscow lies in the panic that gripped the inhabitants, and in the disorder and lack of government orders … " The best medicine, "said Cathcart," for panic fear is the kind of fearless person."
Fact 8. Grigory Orlov with four guards regiments stayed in Moscow for only 1.5 months, which is quite enough to complete the military operation, but not the epidemic itself, which lasted until 1772. During his stay in Moscow, the highest death rate "from the epidemic" was noted, the so-called "historical cemeteries" of Moscow were created.
First of all, Orlov announced that a "pestilence" (sic!)
The dead were buried in special cemeteries by special servants and prisoners; besides clothing and contents, the latter were given the promise of forgiveness. Orlov "ordered everyone to be buried in cemeteries without exception, and so that people would not grumble until something, he ordered to prepare material for building churches in these cemeteries."
Orlov considered it necessary to give money to those in need: they poured land in cemeteries, created the Kamer-Kollezhsky Val, fixed roads and … destroyed almost the entire southern wall of the Kremlin with its towers.
Fact 9. G. Orlov with a victorious report returned to St. Petersburg immediately, without any quarantine. On November 17, 1771, the Senate in St. Petersburg decided the issue of recalling Orlov, he arrived in St. Petersburg with lightning speed and on December 5 he was already talking about his exploits. No one was afraid of the Moscow "plague" in St. Petersburg.
On November 17, the Moscow Senate heard a decree on the recall of Orlov and the appointment of Prince M. N. Volkonsky, and on the 21st, Count Grieg. Grieg. left for St. Petersburg, and he still had to endure almost two months of quarantine before entering the capital. Catherine, however, in her own handwritten letter allowed him and those accompanying him to go directly to Petersburg. A solemn meeting awaited him here: in Tsarskoye Selo, on the way to Gatchina, a wooden gate was erected with an inscription depicting his feat, and with a verse by the poet V. I. Maikov: "Moscow was saved from trouble by Orlov." In honor of him, a medal was struck: on one side there is a portrait of Orlov, on the other Curtius, throwing himself into the abyss, and the inscription: "And Russia has such sons." On December 5, Count Orlov presented to the Council a report on his activities in Moscow.
10. The results of one and a half months of G. Orlov's activity in Moscow were highly appreciated according to the canons of military victories - a medal was struck in his honor with the inscription "For deliverance of Moscow from the Ulcer in 1771", in Tsarskoe Selo (modern. Pushkin) wooden triumphal gates, later replaced by marble ones, which have survived to our time - the so-called Orlov or Gatchina gates.
Medal "For the deliverance of Moscow from the ulcer in 1771" in honor of Count G. G. Orlova.
On the obverse there is an inscription “Count Grigory Grigorievich Orlov, Prince of the Roman Empire”.
On the reverse in a circle "Russia has such sons in itself", below "For the deliverance of Moscow from the Ulcer in 1771".
Oryol or Gatchina gates in Tsarskoe Selo (Pushkin)
on the side facing the Gatchina it is written "Orlov saved Moscow from trouble".
On the reverse side “When there was a pestilence in Moscow and people. Disorder, General Feldzheikhmeister Count Grigory Orlov, at his request, was ordered to go there, established order and obedience, delivered food and healing to the poor and the poor, and suppressed the ferocity of the ulcer with his good institutions."
In memory of the vaccination of smallpox to the empress herself, and more to advertise smallpox, a memorial medal was minted on the order of the Senate on May 14, 1772, on the front side of her bust image of Catherine II, and on the back - the temple of Aesculapius, in front of which lies a defeated dragon. In the foreground, the Empress emerged from the church with her children at full height, showing Russia the scars from smallpox inoculation on her right hand; to the left of her is the slightly lagging heir Paul. Above this whole composition there is an arc-shaped inscription: "I showed an example by myself", under the edge, below - "October 12, 1768".
And so that no one later doubted that there was not smallpox, but a plague, many books were published from afar, here is one of them:
The title page of the book by Afanasy Filimonovich Shafonsky "Description of the pestilence that existed in the capital city of Moscow from 1770 to 1772, with the application of all for the termination of this then established institutions" (M.: [Commission for the prevention and treatment of infectious pestilence ulcers,] Imperial University, 1775. [2nd edition - SPb., 1787]).
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