"Great Experiment" of the 1920s

Conversation with the historian of science Nikolai Krementsov, part two

Ivan Tolstoy: My interlocutor is a science historian, professor at Toronto University Nikolai Leonidovich Krementsov, author (in addition to many other works) of the book “Revolutionary Experiments”, or rather Revolutionary Experiments, since the book exists in English, but not in Russian.

Today is the second conversation with the scientist.

Nikolai Krementsov: We must not forget that the Bolsheviks, in addition to political and economic goals, set very large social goals. And as a majority of the Russian intelligentsia, they perceived their own country as backward, especially in comparison with Western Europe, in which many of them spent years in exile. And this idea of the backwardness of not only economic, not only industrial, but also social turned out to be one of the important points in the formation of symbiosis between scientists and the Bolsheviks.

The fact is that the educational level of the Russian population was quite low. No more than forty percent of the population skillfully read and had access to books, magazines, and education. Therefore, one of the first social tasks that the Bolsheviks set was to raise the cultural level of the population. It is no accident that it is the People's Commissariat that the People's Commissariat forces becomes one of the leading organizations of the Bolsheviks in the construction of a new state.

The second, and this is also important when comparing different countries with each other, medical indicators begin to be used very widely - the level of mortality, birth rate, and children's mortality. In all these parameters, Russia occupied the last place in Europe. According to the numerical ratio of doctors and the population, Russia was far behind all in terms of child mortality. Even Austria-Hungary.

Doctors, like scientists, did not accept the Bolshevik revolution. The intelligentsia considered the Bolsheviks a usurpators because they destroyed the centuries -old dream of a representative government

Ivan Tolstoy: Why "even"?

Nikolai Krementsov: Because Austria-Hungary is also one of the poorly developed empires. Those parts of Austria-Hungary, which today Yugoslavia, Serbia, Croatia, all these were agricultural areas with the absent completely infrastructure of both educational and medical services. Therefore, in comparison with the industrial powers-Germany, France, England-Austria-Hungary was also quite poorly developed, but still better than Russia.

Ivan Tolstoy: That is, the Zemstvo reforms could not put forward Russia?

Nikolai Krementsov: For starters, the zemstvo covered only the European part of Russia, in addition, the zemstvo, especially from the medical side, constantly needed money, and there were endless disputes between the Zemsky doctors that a certain strong central authority was needed, so that the initiatives that at the level of zemstvo were carried out at the level of municipal money, they would still be supported from the central government.

The government did not really want to do this, and since the country constantly experienced the influx of epidemics, it all developed in a common piggy bank. The debates of how to arrange healthcare in the country is very cool and early played into the hands of this forming symbiosis between the Bolsheviks and the medical community. Because the doctors for the most part, as well as scientists, did not accept the Bolshevik revolution. The intelligentsia as a whole considered the Bolsheviks by the usurpators, because they destroyed the centuries -old dream of a representative government - the Constituent Assembly was dispersed, and a cross was put on this eternal dream of a parliamentary republic. Doctors were one of the most active opponents of the dictatorship of the proletariat, organized strikes, protests. All of them ended in nothing, since the Bolsheviks as political power turned out to be stronger than everyone.

The intelligentsia by its nature is a service class, it cannot exist in the absence of a functioning state, a functioning economy. They do not grow products, they consume them. Accordingly, in order for the intelligentsia as a social group to exist, it needs a functioning infrastructure. And the Bolsheviks quickly managed to convince that they could create such infrastructure. Military communism was a means of creating an excess of economic, social infrastructure in a country completely destroyed by a civil war. Accordingly, the scientists, and the doctors, and engineers, and military specialists, and in general, all the specialists of one or another kind came to the service of the Bolsheviks, because there was no one else to serve, but it was necessary to serve, this is a service class.

Thus, the symbiosis of the scientific medical community on the one hand and the Bolsheviks as representatives of the new power structure - on the other, turned out to be quite easily formed. Since their goals coincided. After all, the Russian intelligentsia for centuries has set the goal of the formation of the people, the enlightenment of the people, the service of the people, and these goals coincided with the goals of the Bolsheviks. Therefore, for the purpose of discrepancy, there were few, diverged on how exactly this to do, what means. Nevertheless, the goals united and developed all kinds of compromise options.

The intelligentsia by its nature is a service class, it cannot exist in the absence of a functioning state, a functioning economy

After all, by no means immediately created the system that we are used to calling the Soviet system - the organization of healthcare, and the organization of science, and the organization of culture. What are interesting of the 20s? It is precisely the fact that at this time constant dialogues are taking place between different groups - domineering, biased, not powerful - about how and what to do. And some freedom is created - the freedom of elections, the freedom of goals, freedom of funds. And these 20s are extremely interesting, because the whole country is engaged in one huge experiment, each in its place is trying to understand how we must create something-whether it is a school, whether it is a hospital, a museum, a cinema. And at this time, the energy that was accumulated both among the people and in the intelligentsia, suddenly gets a huge space for experimentation. No wonder everyone called the Russian revolution a "great experiment", and not only the Bolsheviks themselves, but also third -party observers - all with great interest observed how this experiment would end, what forms it would take. And this is one of the aspects of this time that attracts me terribly, because then it was still possible, people believed that everything was possible, including defeating death. And how in the specific situations of scientific disciplines, whether it is hematology or endocrinology, this process of developing new forms, ideas, their embodiment terribly occupies me.

Ivan Tolstoy: Please give some most convincing historical examples.

Nikolai Krementsov: I have one of my favorite objects of study - endocrinology. She arises just at this time. Then there was not even the words "hormones", it appeared in 1907, but already in 1890 it was known that extracts from certain internal secretion organs have a completely amazing effect. For example, giants appear, dwarfs or Bazedov, a disease associated with impaired thyroid function. It is enough to give a person to a person, he has the symptoms of this disease disappear. Almost at the same time, finally, they deal with diabetes, which was considered an incurable disease, and in 1921 insulin was opened, insulin production was established and millions of lives were saved.

Thus, endocrinology developed everywhere - in England, in Germany, in America - at the same time. And in Russia. If you look at exactly how endocrinology arose and developed in Russia, it turns out a terribly interesting picture. Endocrinological studies were conducted in Russia in about the same keys, in approximately the same institutions, about the same groups of people as everywhere.

Before the revolution, there were three clearly marked groups of people who were engaged in three aspects of endocrinology: clinicians who studied various diseases associated with disorders of endocrine activity, chemists and pharmacists who produced organ -preparations, extracts from different organs, and were practicing doctors who used these extracts in their daily practice. They sometimes talked among themselves, but not very.

What happens at this moment? Different groups of people begin to be interested in endocrinology, because hormones make it possible to manipulate shape, speed of development. If we talk about Russia, then before the revolution, these three groups themselves existed in large cities. There is a revolution, and it turns out that it seems there is no endocrinology, because it should not be done by that. Tif, chickenpox, plague, Spaniard - not up to endocrinology. Nevertheless, endocrinology begins to develop almost instantly in the Soviet state. In July 1918, the People’s Commissariat of Health was created.

Ivan Tolstoy: Simultaneously with red terror.

Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, not expecting, turned out to be a great -grandmother of Soviet endocrinology

Nikolai Krementsov: Yes. Just the formation of the state apparatus is going on. Two weeks later, on the table, the People's Commissar of Health Nikolai Aleksandrovich Semashko, the old Bolshevik, the doctor by education, the memorandum with the post “From Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich” is laid, which at that moment is the secretary of Lenin. It says: "Please familiarize yourself and provide assistance." And the record itself was written by veterinarian Yakov Tabolkin, an unknown person who leads the goat farm in the village of All Sosvyatsky near Moscow. This goat farm was originally engaged in the production of goat milk for patients with tuberculosis, and at some point, in 1912, Tabolkin as a veterinarian began to carry out some operations on these goats-to remove the thyroid gland from them. A goat is an interesting organism, they can live without it for a long time and give milk. If a person is removed in a thyroid gland, then he will die literally in a matter of weeks in the absence of a thyroid hormone. And the milk of such operated goats was considered very beneficial for people with a thyroid disease, namely, for people who were ill with a bazed disease.

There is an interesting story, how Tabolkin was familiar with Bonch-Bruevich and why he asked Tabolkin so that he would deliver this milk to the Kremlin-we all know that Krupskaya was ill with a based disease. Bonch-Bruevich wrote in his diary that the milk of these goats literally put her on her feet. So the beginning of Soviet endocrinology was laid.

Ivan Tolstoy: Everywhere the human factor!

Nikolai Krementsov: In another book, which was actually the head in the book on revolutionary experiments, dedicated to blood transfusion, which I published four years earlier than the book about revolutionary experiments, the story of how the institute of blood transfusion in Moscow was created, I was told in details. And there, too, the personal problems of the high -ranking Bolsheviks were one of the reasons to ensure that it was created. Alexander Alexandrovich Bogdanov, although a doctor by education, but did not have any practice at all, became the first director of this institute.

Ivan Tolstoy: Who had blood problems?

Nikolai Krementsov: At Krasin. He suffered from a very bad form of what was called "malignant anemia" in those years. To date, it is difficult to make a diagnosis, maybe it was a leukocytosis, he was still an engineer who worked with electrical equipment, maybe he received some kind of radiation dose. Bogdanov saved Krasin for a short while, for a year and a half, but nevertheless.

Tabolkin was a veterinarian. Semashko, looking at this note, acted like any normal bureaucrat - he sent this note to the scientific medical council. It was a very interesting body that was created simultaneously with the creation of the People's Commissariat of Health, this scientific medical council included doctors or researchers, scientists with a good reputation of scientific, who were ready to cooperate with the Bolsheviks-someone sympathized, someone due to scientific interests. And this advice, led by a famous microbiologist Tarasevich, receives a note with a Semashko visa-see whether to expand this farm, turn it into some kind of scientific institution. The scientific council says that the information is not enough, give us serious justifications. And so the history of Soviet endocrinology begins.

Among the Moscow doctors who used this goat milk, there was one of the leaders and the creator of the Moscow therapeutic society, professor of Moscow University, and the head of the Department of Pathology Shervinsky. He was quite interested in endocrinology, wrote work about this, and when Tabolkin began to produce this milk, he became interested, and since he was a very famous doctor with wide private practice, he began to use this milk. And in one of the reports on the therapeutic society, he said that we have practically no studies that would cover us with the mechanism of action of this milk, but my personal practice shows that in some cases it is extremely beneficial.

When Tabolkin found out that the scientific council was not ready to make a decision, he sat down and wrote a lengthy note with the plan: how many new goats need to be bought, what research can be carried out, and wrote that it would be very good if people familiar with the theme took part in the discussion of this issue. The first in the list of people was Shervinsky. The scientist Medical Council invites him to the meeting, and he says: yes, I am familiar, in my practice it works. The scientific council agrees, the opinion of Shervinsky is expensive, and by 1919 there is a mandate, funds are already allocated for the development of this farm.

And this Alliance of Shervinsky and Tabolkin becomes the main driving force to create the discipline of endocrinology in the Soviet Union. By 1925, they are managed to create a completely new institution of experimental endocrinology, create the journal "Endocrinology Issues", create an endocrinological society, and everything begins to bloom, they create the first Russian insulin, the first Russian adrenaline.

Ivan Tolstoy: What is the old Kozlodoev!

The Politicaltorzhan Society had a quota at the institute for the operation of rejuvenation, and several well -known members of the company underwent these operations

Nikolai Krementsov: The first step on the door is the personal problems of high -ranking Bolsheviks. Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, not expecting, turned out to be a great -grandmother of Soviet endocrinology.

And about the literature, you will probably remember Belyaev’s novel "A Man who has lost his face."

Ivan Tolstoy: I haven't read it.

Nikolai Krementsov: This is a curious Romanets. As in almost all Belyaev’s novels, the action takes place abroad, in the USA, where a certain doctor Sorokin uses hormones to turn people. A very famous Hollywood actor Tonio Presto comes to him, who is terribly ugly, and his role as a comedian paired with a magnificent movie star serves as the basis for his popularity and wealth. But when Tonio tries to offer the hand and heart of her partner, she just laughs at him, because she is the personification of beauty, and he is an unhappy freak. He begins to make faces for her, she laughs more and more, faints, Tonio believes that she died, and tries to escape and hide. But instead of going to a plastic surgeon, he runs to the Laboratory of Sorokin, and he changes his appearance for a long time with injections of different hormones for a long time. He becomes a pleasant young man with the right features of his face. This, of course, does not improve his life situation, because when he tries to enter his own mansion, he is immediately arrested and put in prison. When he nevertheless proves to the judicial officials that he is the very terrible Tonio, calls Dr. Sorokin as a witness, he shows the photos before and after injections, the court nevertheless recognizes him, but the prosecutor insists that he is deprived of all his wealth, since this is a disgrace-everyone will begin to change his appearance, and this undermines all the foundations of capitalism. Because capitalism is private property. And what is private property? This is a kind of human face, which owns something. And if everyone will randomly change their faces, how will there be private property?

In short, Tonio’s process loses and decides that he will take revenge on them all. He makes his way to the Laboratory of Sorokin, steals hormones from him and invites all his offenders to the farewell dinner, starting from the beauty of Gedda Lux and ending with the judge and the governor of the state. And all of them in drinking or food mixes hormones. As a result, the Great Beauty becomes a giant of almost seven -foot growth, the governor turns into a black, the prosecutor into lilipr. They have no way out, they go to Sorokin, he returns their normal appearance to them, and he is forced to leave the United States, since he undermines the foundation of society with his science. And on the steamer sailing to Europe, he again meets with Tonio, who again changed his appearance thanks to some kind of injections.

Here is such a Romanets, written about what hormones with a human body can do.

Belyaev Roman rewrote, he was then called "a man who found his face", because the option of the 20s did not quite fit into the thematic and methodological attitudes of the 30s.

Ivan Tolstoy: Belyaev invented this story, or did he also take it from newspapers and magazines?

Nikolai Krementsov: He, of course, invented the story itself, but he took a lot from newspapers and magazines, even the name of a Russian doctor who somewhere in California performs these experiments, it is very speaking. It is in the novel - Sorokin. And in the Russian language, as you know the forty-first-hand, a crow, and, of course, the surname Sorokin refers to the very famous Voronoff surname in the 20s. It was a French surgeon of Russian origin, which was one of the pioneers of rejuvenation operations - transplantation of the sex glands from monkey to person.

Ivan Tolstoy: What are these years?

Nikolai Krementsov: 1920s.

Ivan Tolstoy: He was a Russian emigrant?

Nikolai Krementsov: His parents left Russia, he studied medicine already in France. He spoke Russian, and our doctors who went to his consultations, communicated with him both in Russian and French. The story of Dr. Voronoff is a real story, and this is one of the episodes that served as the reason for the "dog heart". These rejuvenation classes with the help of transplants of the sex glands from animals to humans were crazy in the 20s in the world, Voronoff was one of the pioneers and engines of this movement.

The second was the Austrian physiologist Stein, who offered not a transplant of the sex glands, but some other surgical interventions - a transit of the seed cord, etc. These two names became the personification of what can be done with new experimental methods with the transformation of human life. In Russia, the main center of this kind of experiments was the Institute of Experimental Biology in Moscow, organized by Nikolai Konstantinovich Koltsov, one of the leaders of Russian experimental biology, and these studies appeared in a whole bunch of literary works, the “dog’s heart” is not the only thing. In general, the effect of the sex glands on the body, everything related to gender is a very relevant topic in the 20s not only for doctors, but also for psychiatrists, writers, and Bolsheviks.

Ivan Tolstoy:

The problem of the floor came

Rush Fefel.

The Bolsheviks in the beginning of the 20th announced homosexuality, so much attention was removed by these issues before and after the revolution in medical circles

Nikolai Krementsov: And the fact that experimental biology and medicine found certain ways to change sex and manipulation of “sexual departures”, as it was called at that time, it was a very, very important element of that sexual revolution that was happening in Russia at that time. All norms of behavior, sexual prohibitions, all this is canceled, the revolution cancels the dependence of a woman on a man, cancels the old institutions of marriage, declares a woman absolutely free at their own body, and in the same way frees a man from marriage obligations. Although the Bolsheviks became one of the first to create an institution of alimony even out of marriage: if paternity was proved, then a person had to pay child support, regardless of whether he was married to a particular woman. Therefore, the problem of paternity at this time in biological journals is very actively discussed and all kinds of scientific methods for determining paternity are proposed.

Naturally, the audience is most interested in the question of the floor in its direct form - the change in the floor. And in the "Dog heart" remember who mainly turns about the rejuvenation operations? We see a certain Nepman of the elderly who seeks to regain his youth and lost potency, a certain elderly lady who strives besides. But if you look at the real documents of the Institute of Experimental Biology, then among the papers of Koltsov there is a daddy with letters that were deposited in the archives. And from these letters a completely different picture looms. Most often, young people turned from, from 20 to 30 years old, who had a problem with impotence. But the doctors who worked at the Koltsovsky Institute denied most of these people.

Ivan Tolstoy: Why?

Nikolai Krementsov: Because in those years, impotence was considered the result of the wrong lifestyle of the patient himself - abuse of masturbation, sexually transmitted diseases. And the recommendation was to return to a healthy lifestyle. And scientists, since the main task is rejuvenation, were more interested in the elderly people. Most of the patients of the institute were old Bolsheviks and former famous members of the People’s Volya party, members of the Political Council Society. According to some documents, the Politoktorzhan Society had a quota at the institute for rejuvenation operations, and several well -known members of the company underwent these operations.

Ivan Tolstoy: Are their names known? Announced?

Nikolai Krementsov: In the book I announced them, but in those years they were not announced. But the very fact of this kind of operations was very widely covered in the press. The principles of conducting the medical history have been established for a long time, so these names in published materials were not indicated, but only initials were indicated. But according to descriptions and initials, it is quite easy to restore who it was when and how these operations were carried out.

Ivan Tolstoy: Successfully carried out?

Nikolai Krementsov: Yes.

Ivan Tolstoy: Was the result?

Nikolai Krementsov: Those results that were brought to the attention of the public were quite favorable.

Ivan Tolstoy: The nationality and will returned.

Nikolai Krementsov: Yes. Another category of people who were interested in all this were people with non -traditional sexual orientation. As you know, the Bolsheviks in the early 20th year decriminalized homosexuality, so much attention was removed by these issues before and after the revolution in medical circles. At that time, there was an idea of homosexuality that it was associated with insufficient activity of the sex glands. And since at the same time there are experiments on the change of sex, mainly on animals that are widely advertised ...

Koltsov had such an employee Mikhail Mikhailovich Zavadovsky, one of his students, who was engaged in this problem since pre-revolutionary times, in the 20s of his book “Half of Animals and Changing it” enjoyed a frantic success, in these books he described his experiments to turn chicken into a rooster and rooster into chicken.

Ivan Tolstoy: Was it not charlatan?

Nikolai Krementsov: No. If you cut the ovaries from the chicken and implant the testes for her, then after some time this chicken acquires all the external features of the rooster.

Ivan Tolstoy: Does the red scallop grow up?

Nikolai Krementsov: Yes, a scallop and tail. And the rooster in appearance becomes like chicken.

Ivan Tolstoy: And if you rejuvenate, then seventy -five on the chicken on the ruble.

Nikolai Krementsov: Zavadovsky did not do this, it is difficult to rejuvenate the chicken, they do not live so long. Zavadovsky wrote very well, these experiments were widely advertised. When he wrote his monumental work about these experiments, the State Publishing House persuaded him to read the cycle of popular lectures in the Polytechnic Museum for the people. The monograph was special, written for his colleagues, but the pictures that he showed had excellent colored tables, when the chicken turns into a rooster on one side and turns into chicken on the other, they parted with millions of circulations because they were reproduced in any gender manual, and there were a lot of these benefits at that time. So, having read this cycle of lectures that was held with a clogged room, the State Publishing House decided that they would also release a popular version of his monograph. This is 1921–23, very early, and it was at this time that the wave begins with the experiments of Steinakh and Voronoff of rejuvenation.

And it is clear that most people are intertwined in the head, that this is all from the same opera, that these are all experiments of the same order. And, returning to homosexuality, people who at that time were diagnosed themselves as having a non -standard orientation, they, reading all this literature, were excited that there is an opportunity to realize their identity, which is otherwise hidden, it interferes with life. And in the Koltsov archive there is a large collection of letters from people with questions: can I change the floor? But Koltsov and his institute were not engaged in such operations, they studied rejuvenation. And at first I could not find out for a long time: in general, someone was engaged in?

In the end, I found the answer on the pages of "Evening Moscow", in the report, where the name of the surgeon was named. It was a well -known at that time plastic surgeon Golenitsky, who was engaged in leather transplants, various plastic operations, including he performed several sex changes that turned out to be quite successful, and as far as I know, these are one of the first operations of this kind in the world. The same kind of operations were carried out in Germany, but this is the mid-1920s.

And if you remember another work of Bulgakov, already a dramatic, "Zoikina apartment", then these hens and the alteration of the floor appear there. There, she serves a small vignette in addition to everything else that is happening in this play, but for the viewer of that time Vignetochka was very speaking, because Zavadovsky, returning to Moscow in 1921, becomes the leader of the Moscow zoo, and he puts these hens in the zoo. Там есть специальный вольер, по которому гуляют куры и петухи, поменявшиеся ролями. В том же зоопарке Завадовский проводит опыты омоложения не на котах и собаках, а на экзотических животных, которые живут в зоопарке. Скажем, престарелый олень редкий, Заводовский его омолаживает. Это все существует в обществе. Не наука существует сама по себе в башнях из слоновой кости, а она растворена в культуре того времени. Но не вся наука.

I found three large leitmotiv, which through literature, science and culture go through such waves. Вопросы смерти, бессмертия, омоложения, продления жизни – это одна волна. In a sufficiently different ways, not only injections of hormones, transplantation of the sex glands, but in other ways, you can achieve rejuvenation and extension of life, and in my book I consider different approaches to the problem of death. One of my favorite examples is an example with cut heads.

Иван Толстой: Профессор Доуэль?

Николай Кременцов: Да. Вы наверняка знаете профессора Доуэля, а вот имя Сергея Брюхоненко что-нибудь вам говорит?

Ivan Tolstoy: No.

Николай Кременцов: Если вы помните, голова профессора Доуэля печаталась сначала в газете в июле-августе 1925 года, а в сентябре 1925 года, на 2-м Съезде советских физиологов была продемонстрирована отрезанная собачья голова, которая жила сама по себе, подключенная к некоему аппарату. And this was a demonstration of this was done by the doctor Sergei Bryukhonenko, who worked at that time at the chemical and pharmaceutical institute, Supreme Economic Council. At first I found Bryukhonenko in my journal searches, and only then I remembered that this was what Belyaev wrote about.

Naturally, the question arises: who had written off what? Если посмотреть биографию Беляева, то там упоминается Брюхоненко и, как правило, пишут авторитетные люди, что Беляев предвосхитил, может, подсказал Брюхоненко его эксперименты с отрезанными головами. А ежели вы посмотрите на какие-то писания о Брюхоненко, то там прямо противоположная точка зрения высказывается, что это опыты Брюхоненко привели Беляева к голове профессора Доуэля. I have a completely different position. Я считаю, что никто из них ничего друг у друга не списывал, а пришли они к этой идее параллельно, поскольку идея сама существовала намного раньше и в литературе, и в науке.

Каким образом эти идеи развивались в литературной традиции, каким образом эти же идеи развивались в научной традиции, что такое изолированные органы, как это называлось в физиологии? Ведь первое, с чем знакомится студент на занятиях по физиологии, это лапка лягушки, отрезанная от лягушки и живущая сама по себе, сокращающаяся. А тут вместо лапки – голова. Но почему именно в это время и почему именно в Москве так одновременно ученые – с одной стороны и литераторы – с другой обращаются к теме этого существования головы без тела?

Иван Толстой: Окончание разговора – в ближайшем выпуске программы.