Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T13:28:52.529Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

When endemic met epidemic: cholera, chronic disease and public health in Kazan, 1788–1842

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 August 2020

Eric Johnson Open the ORCID record for Eric Johnson [Opens in a new window]
Eric Johnson*
Affiliation:
University of Washington, Department of History, Smith 318, Seattle, WA98195-3560USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: ej.redmond@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article situates the 1830 cholera epidemic in the provincial Russian city of Kazan within the context of broader local discourse on endemic disease and public health over the first half of the nineteenth century. In the decades before cholera, the city gained important local institutions, and began to perceive itself as a potential site of public health intervention. During the outbreak, Kazan's local institutions supported a comparatively robust response to the disaster. And, afterward, the resulting trauma helped spur those institutions to implement long-discussed public health improvements. Thus, the article emphasizes the interplay between cholera as an emotional catalyst, and the broader institutional and conceptual frameworks necessary to enact lasting change.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , November 2021 , pp. 625 - 643
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Briggs, A., ‘Cholera and society in the nineteenth century’, Past and Present, 19 (1961), 89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Rosenberg, C.E., The Cholera Years (Chicago, 1962), 226–33Google Scholar.

3 McGrew, R.E., Russia and the Cholera, 1823–1832 (Madison, 1965), 153–8Google Scholar.

4 Delaporte, F., The Cholera in Paris, 1832, trans. Goldhammer, A. (Cambridge, MA, 1986), 3–11Google Scholar.

5 Gilbert, P.K., Cholera and Nation: Doctoring the Social Body in Victorian England (Albany, 2008), 14Google Scholar.

6 Hamlin, C., Cholera: The Biography (Oxford, 2009), 14–18Google Scholar.

7 Durey, M., The First Spasmodic Cholera Epidemic in York, 1832 (York, 1974), 28–9Google Scholar.

8 Evans, R.J., Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera Years, 1830–1910 (Oxford, 1987), 475–8Google Scholar.

9 Snowden, F.M., Naples in the Time of Cholera, 1884–1911 (Cambridge, 1995), 4–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Hamlin, C., ‘“Cholera forcing”: the myth of the good epidemic and the coming of good water’, American Journal of Public Health, 99 (2009), 1949, 1953CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

11 Zagidullin, I.K. et al. , Kazanskaia istoriia v dokumentakh i materialakh, XIX vek, vol. II (Kazan, 2011), 19Google Scholar; Shter, M.P., Statisticheskoe izobrazhenie gorodov i posadov Rossiiskoi Imperii po 1825 god (St Petersburg, 1829), 30–1Google Scholar; Anonymous, ‘Statistika: o sostoianie Kazani v 1844 godu’, Kazanskiia gubernskiia vedomosti, 34 (1845), 331–2Google Scholar.

12 [V.F.] Romishevskii, Voenno-statisticheskoe obozrenie Rossiiskoi Imperii, vol. V, pt 1: Kazanskaia guberniia (St Petersburg, 1850), 121–4; Evlentev, K.G., Kazanskie zametki (Kazan, 1855), 20–1Google Scholar.

13 Mironov, B.N., Russkii gorod v 1740–1860e gody (Leningrad, 1990), 214–16Google Scholar.

14 ‘Statistika: o sostoianie Kazani’, 322–3; Chernov, I., Ukazatel goroda Kazani, ili Pamiatnaia knizhka dlia zhitelei Kazanskoi gubernii (Kazan, 1840), 124–36, 140–56, 174–80, 183–8, 388–91Google Scholar. Engagement with the complexities of class and social-estate (soslovie) in Russia must be omitted for brevity. One starting point: Wirtschafter, E.K., Social Identity in Imperial Russia (Dekalb, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Fuks, K., Kazanskie Tatary v statisticheskom i etnograficheskom otnosheniiakh (Kazan, 1844), 2–3Google Scholar; ‘Statistika: o sostoianie Kazani’, 332–3.

16 Natsiolnalnyi Arkhiv Respubliki Tatarstana (NART), f. 114, o. 1, d. 216, ll. 267–269ob, 286–311ob, 333–55, 405–32; Vishlenkova, E.A. et al. , Kultura povsednevnosti provintsialnogo goroda: Kazan i Kazantsy v XIX–XX vekakh (Kazan, 2008), 157–8Google Scholar; Zagoskin, N.P., Istoriia Imperatorskago Kazanskago Universiteta za pervyia sto let ego sushchestvovaniia, 1804–1904, vol. II (Kazan, 1902), 669Google Scholar.

17 Bazhenov, N., Kazanskaia istoriia, vol. III (Kazan, 1847), 132–3Google Scholar; Sverdlova, L.M., Kazanskoe kupechestvo: Sotsialno-ekonomicheskii portret, kon. XVIII–nach. XX v. (Kazan, 2011), 172–3Google Scholar; Dietz, V. et al. , Nemetskie uchenye: professora Kazanskogo universiteta (Kazan, 2004), 5–9Google Scholar; Alekseev, I.E., Evreiskii krest: istoriia obrashcheniia v pravoslavie evreev v Kazanskoi eparkhii v 1820–1850 gg. (Kazan, 2005), 9, 25–9Google Scholar; Grishin, I.I., Kazan i Kazanskii krai glazami polskikh ssylnykh (Kazan, 2008), 5, 48–51, 63–7Google Scholar.

18 Alexander, J.T., Bubonic Plague in Early Modern Russia: Public Health and Urban Disaster (Baltimore, 1980), 36–57Google Scholar.

19 Ibid., 50–5; Smirnova, E.M., ‘Vrachebnaia uprava v istorii zdravokhraneniia Rossii’, Istoricheskie, filosofskie, politicheskie i iurodicheskie nauki, kulturologiia i iskusstvovodenie, 24 (2012), 195–7Google Scholar.

20 Spiridonov, V.A., ‘Stanovlenie sudebno-meditsinskoi sluzhby v Kazanskoi gubernii’, in Plaksin, V.O. et al. (eds.), Materialy VI Vserossiiskogo sezda sudebnykh medikov (Moscow, 2005), 271–2Google Scholar.

21 Chernov, Ukazatel goroda Kazani, 147–8.

22 Zimin, I.V., ‘Meditsinskaia intelligentsiia v soslovnoi strukture Rossiiskoi imperii XIX veka’, Problemy sotsialnoi gigieny, zdravokhraneniia i istorii meditsiny, 6 (2003), 49–50Google Scholar.

23 Vishlenkova, E.A., ‘Mediko-biologicheskie obiasneniia sotsialnykh problem Rossii’, in Gladyshev, A.V. (ed.), Istoriia i istoricheskii pamiat, vol. IV (Saratov, 2011), 44–6, 53–9Google Scholar.

24 This average included a sharp drop in the early 1830s due to deaths and attrition related to the cholera outbreak. Zagoskin, N.P. (ed.), Za sto let: biograficheskii slovar professorov i prepodavatelei Imperatorskago Kazanskago universiteta (1804–1904), vol. II (Kazan, 1904), 95–384, 391–4Google Scholar.

25 Eroshkin, N.P., Istoriia gosudarstvennykh uchrezhdenii dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii (Moscow, 1997), 119, 165–8Google Scholar.

26 Rybushkin, M., Kratkaia istoriia goroda Kazani, 1st edn, vol. II (Kazan, 1834), 32–3Google Scholar; Mironov, B., A Social History of Imperial Russia, 1700–1917, vol. I (Boulder, 2000), 381–8Google Scholar; Eroshkin, Istoriia gosudarstvennykh uchrezhdenii, 121–4.

27 Sverdlova, Kazanskoe kupechestvo, 273–7.

28 Zinovev, D., Topograficheskoe opisanie goroda Kazani i ego Uezda (Moscow, 1788), 21–2, 37–8, 53Google Scholar.

29 Zinovev, D., ‘Nechto o dobrote i svoistve vod v Kazani, o prikliuchaiushchikhsia liudiam bolezniakh, skotskikh padezhakh i proch.’, Kazanskiia izvestiia, no. 13, 14 Feb. 1817, 49–50Google Scholar.

30 The quoted mortality rate bears rough comparison to analogues in urban western Europe and North America. See: Evans, Death in Hamburg, 180–1; Haines, M.R., The Urban Mortality Transition in the United States, 1800–1940 (Cambridge, MA, 2001), 3–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Preston, S.H. and van de Walle, E., ‘Urban French mortality in the nineteenth century’, Population Studies, 32 (1978), 283–4CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

31 Barrett, F.A., ‘The role of French-language contributors to the development of medical geography (1782–1933)’, Social Science & Medicine, 55 (2002), 155–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Julia, C. and Valleron, A.-J., ‘Louis-René Villerme (1782–1863), a pioneer in social epidemiology’, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 65 (Aug. 2011), 666–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Langel, I., Kratkoe mediko-fizicheskoe i topograficheskoe obozrenie Kazanskoi Gubernii i Gubernskago goroda Kazani, 2nd printing (Kazan, 1829), 2Google Scholar.

33 Rybushkin, Kratkaia istoriia goroda Kazani, 1st edn, vol. II, 149–50.

34 Fuks, K., ‘Zamechanie o kholere, svirepstvovavshei v gorode Kazani v techenie sentiabria i oktiabria mesiatsev’, Kazanskii vestnik, 32 (1831), 255Google Scholar.

35 Smith, A.K., ‘Public works in an autocratic state: water supplies in an imperial Russian town’, Environment and History, 11 (2005), 324CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 ‘O kachestve vod v Kazani, i o deistviiakh klimata nad zdorovem i razmnozheniem naroda, chasto prikliuchaiushchikhsia bolezniakh liudiam, i skotskikh zarazakh’, Kazanskiia izvestiia, no. 66, 17 Aug. 1818, 258.

37 Langel, Kratkoe mediko-fizicheskoe, 66.

38 Tile, V., ‘Zapiska o prichinakh, po koim Kazan prinadlezhit k gorodam, zdoroviu neblagopriiatstvuiushchim (Okonchanie)’, Zavolzhskii muravei, 20 (1833), 1136Google Scholar; Spiridonov, ‘Stanovlenie sudebno-meditsinskoi sluzhby’, 271.

39 ‘Kazan, 13-go Sentiabria’, Kazanskiia izvestiia, no. 74, 15 Sep. 1815, 421.

40 Zagoskin, Istoriia Imperatorskago Kazanskago Universiteta, vol. II, 669.

41 Rybushkin, Kratkaia istoriia goroda Kazani, 1st edn, vol. II, 143.

42 Arnold, D., Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-Century India (Berkeley, 1993), 159–64Google Scholar.

43 Evans, Death in Hamburg, 226–30.

44 Henze, C.E., Disease, Health Care and Government in Late Imperial Russia: Life and Death on the Volga, 1823–1914 (London, 2011), 12–14Google Scholar.

45 NART, f. 1, o. 1, d. 165, ll. 133–138ob.

46 McGrew, Russia and the Cholera, 51–63.

47 NART, f. 1, o. 1, d. 271, ll. 7ob–8.

48 Kazanskii, M.V., Putevoditel po Kazani (Kazan, 1899), 90–1Google Scholar; Zagoskin, N.P., Sputnik po Kazani: Illiustrirovannyi ukazatel dostoprimechatelnostei i spravochnaia knizhka goroda (Kazan, 1895), 490–2Google Scholar.

49 NART, f. 1, o. 1, d. 195, l. 266ob.

50 Fuks, ‘Zamechanie o kholere’, 223; Zagoskin, Sputnik po Kazani, 492.

51 [Vasi]lev, P., Kholernye gody v Kazani (Kazan, 1871), 7Google Scholar.

52 NART, f. 1, o. 1, d. 197, ll. 30–31ob; NART, f. 1, o. 1, d. 201, ll. 1–100.

53 [Vasi]lev, Kholernye gody, 10.

54 NART, f. 1, o. 1, d. 198, ll. 132–132ob; NART, f. 1, o. 1, d. 271, ll. 3–5.

55 NART, f. 1, o. 1, d. 165, ll. 136ob–137ob; NART, f. 1, o. 1, d. 195, ll. 299ob–300.

56 NART, f. 1, o. 1, d. 195, ll. 1–6ob, 23–24ob, 27, 31a–36ob.

57 NART, f. 1, o. 1, d. 201, ll. 32, 34, 36.

58 Dolgov, E., ‘“Po usmotrenii v nem rastoropnosti i otlichnykh poznanii” (Kazanskii grazhdanskii gubernator Ivan Grigorevich Zhevanov)’, Ekho vekov, 2 (2007), 224–30Google Scholar.

59 NART, f. 1, o. 1, d. 195, ll. 55–55ob, 111–14, 120–120ob, 149, 190–191ob, 210, 290.

60 NART, f. 1, o. 1, d. 195, ll. 297–8.

61 NART, f. 1, o. 1, d. 195, ll. 192–3, 196–7, 236, 307–307ob, 330–330ob.

62 NART, f. 1, o. 1, d. 195, ll. 140–142ob, 248–9, 263–7, 272–272ob, 277–288ob.

63 NART, f. 1, o. 1, d. 195, ll. 141–141ob, 248–9.

64 Zagoskin, Sputnik po Kazani, 493–4.

65 NART, f. 1, o. 1, d. 201, ll. 1–100; Kazanskii, Putevoditel po Kazani, 91; Skandovskii, N., O prichinakh peremezhaiushcheisia likhoradki v Kazani (Kazan, 1841), 14Google Scholar.

66 McGrew, Russia and the Cholera, 50–1, 105–12, 116–25; Delaporte, The Cholera in Paris, 48–54, 66–9; Durey, The First Spasmodic Cholera, 24.

67 McGrew, Russia and the Cholera, 52–4, 77–82; Snowden, Naples in the Time of Cholera, 241–4. Of interest are significant parallels in the experiences of Moscow and Kazan.

68 Sahadeo, J., Russian Colonial Society in Tashkent, 1865–1923 (Bloomington, 2007), 85–7Google Scholar; Gilbert, Cholera and Nation, 109–13.

69 Pupyrev, K., Opisanie khoda bolezni nazyvaemoi kholeroi, otkryvsheisia 1829 goda (Kazan, 1830), 9–11Google Scholar; NART, f. 1, o. 1, d. 195, l. 36.

70 Zinovev, ‘Nechto o dobrote’, 50–1.

71 NART, f. 1, o. 1, d. 195, ll. 260–261ob.

72 Arngoldt, I., ‘O vliianii vozdukha i vody na zdravie chelevecheskoe (Okonchanie)’, Zavolzhskii muravei, 14 (1832), 14, 774–5Google Scholar.

73 Tile, ‘Zapiska o prichinakh’, 1137–8.

74 Skandovskii, O prichinakh peremezhaiushcheisia likhoradki, 6–8.

75 Ibid., 4, 6.

76 Ibid., 13–14.

77 Smith, ‘Public works’, 327–35.

78 Cities of Europe and North America also wrestled with water quality issues and delays that were sometimes comparable. See e.g. Evans, Death in Hamburg, 145–8; H.L. Purdy, An Historical Analysis of the Economic Growth of St. Louis, 1840–1945 (n.p., 1945), 14, 18–19.

79 NART, f. 114, o. 1, d. 1650, ll. 9ob–14; Zagidullin, I.K. et al. , Kazanskaia istoriia v dokumentakh i materialakh, XIX vek, vol. III (Kazan, 2011), 509–10Google Scholar; Kazanskii, Putevoditel po Kazani, 161–2.

80 Skandovskii, O prichinakh peremezhaiushcheisia likhoradki, 6, 15.