Russia in the time of cholera : disease under Romanovs and Soviets / John P. Davis.

  • Davis, John P.
Date:
2018
  • Books

About this work

Description

As the nineteenth century drew to a close and epidemics in western Europe were waning, the deadly cholera vibrio continued to wreak havoc in Russia, outlasting the Romanovs. Scholars have since argued that cholera eventually fell prey to better sanitation and strict quarantine under the Soviets, citing as evidence imperial mismanagement, a ̀backward' tsarist medical system and physicians' anachronistic environmental interpretations of the disease. Drawing on extensive archival research and the so-called 'material turn' in historiography, however, John P. Davis here demonstrates that Romanov-era physicians' environmental approach to disease was not ill-grounded, nor a consequence of neo-liberal or populist political leanings, but born of pragmatic scientific considerations. The physicians confronted cholera in a broad and sophisticated way, essentially laying the foundations for the system of public health that the Soviets successfully used to defeat cholera during the New Economic Policy (1922-1928). By focusing for the first time on the conclusion of the cholera epoch in Russia, Davis adds an indispensable layer of nuance to the existing conception of Romanov Russia and its complicated legacy in the Soviet period.

Publication/Creation

London ; New York : I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, 2018.

Physical description

xvi, 314 pages : illustrations, charts, maps ; 23 cm.

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Contributors

Contents

Introduction -- Major Contributions -- Russia's Vulnerability to Cholera -- The Russian Intellectual Framework -- Tsarist and Soviet Anti-Cholera Strategies -- Cholera's Departure from Russia -- Historiography -- Sources -- Organisation -- 1. Cholera and its Environs: The Case of Russia -- Transportation and Disease in Russia -- Russian Science and Cholera -- Immunology and its Reception in Russia -- Conclusion -- 2. Tsarist Russia and the First Five Pandemics, 1817-94 -- The First 'Time of Troubles' -- The Tambora Volcano and First Pandemic, 1815-23 -- The Second Pandemic and 'Hungry' Forties: 1829-49 -- The Crimean War and Third Pandemic: 1852-9 -- The Fourth Pandemic, 1865-73: The Great Reforms, Famine and Preventive Medicine -- The Krakatoa Volcano and the 1892 Cholera Epidemic -- The 1892 Epidemic: Its Course and Characteristics -- Erismann and Russian Bacteriology -- The Pasteurisation of Russia, 1883-1928 -- Conclusion -- 3. The Sixth Pandemic Enters Russia, 1902-7 -- 'The Troubles' Begin, 1902-7 -- The Siberian Epidemic of 1902 -- The Tsarist Cholera Rules, 1903 -- The Persian Expedition of 1904 -- The Cholera Epidemic in Saratov, 1904 -- The SEC Railroad Sub-Commission, 1904 -- The Saratov SEC, 1904 -- Gamaleia's Investigation of the 1904 Epidemic -- The 1905 Revolution and Pirogov Cholera Conference -- Zemstvo Physicians versus Koch -- Conclusion -- 4. Cholera Returns to Russia, 1907-13 -- Cholera Reappears in Russia: Samara, 1907 -- The 1907 Cholera Epidemic and Investigation in Samara -- The MVD Returns to the Volga, 1908-9 -- The Tsarist Railroad and Cholera -- The Threat of Cholera on the Russian Railroad and the Muslim Hajj, 1907-9 -- Gamaleia and the Great 1908 Epidemic in St Petersburg -- The 1910 Epidemic -- Conclusion.

Bibliographic information

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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Where to find it

  • LocationStatus
    History of Medicine
    FK.31
    		Open shelves

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Identifiers

ISBN

  • 9781788311687
  • 178831168X