Are you here: the beauty

SPACES OF RUSSIA

On the arable land. Spring. Fragment. Artist A.G. Venetsianov. 1822.

VIEW FROM THE 18TH CENTURY

Lomonosov M.V.

About conservation and reproduction Russian people 1

Lomonosov Mikhail Vasilyevich (1711-1765), encyclopedic scientist, full member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and Arts, honorary member of the Stockholm and Bologna Academies of Sciences.

A letter to Count I.I. Shuvalov, containing the views of M.V. Lomonosov on the socio-demographic problems of the Russian Empire and measures to address them.

Keywords: matrimony, infantile illnesses, food, fasting, holidays, violent death, fires, fortification of cities, escapes.

Dear sir, Ivan Ivanovich!

Analyzing my writings, I found old notes of my thoughts, extending to the increment of the common benefit. After consideration, it was decided for me, for the benefit of more extensive and more detailed, to inform them to Your Excellency, as a true zealot, about every good of the dear Fatherland, in the hope, perhaps, there will be something in them that will serve for the real improvement of the Russian world, which is sorted out by your insight and diligence, located and can be brought to true fulfillment.<...>And so, merciful sir, excuse my insolence that, not having the necessary ability for this, I only touch a heavy burden only out of zeal, which does not allow me to leave anything (even if only apparently) useful to society under a bushel . I consider the beginning of this to be the most important thing: the preservation and reproduction of the Russian people, in which lies the majesty, power and wealth of the entire state, and not in the vastness, futile without inhabitants. The divine cause and merciful and philanthropic monarch of our meek heart is a worthy cause, to save subjects from death, even though others were worthy according to the laws. This pardon is explicit and directly dependent on her

1 Cited according to the publication: Lomonosov M.V. Compositions / Enter. Art. and notes by A.A. Morozov. M.-L.: State Publishing House fiction, 1961. S.

“Lomonosov’s article “On the Preservation and Reproduction of the Russian People” was compiled by him in the form of a letter addressed to I.I. Shuvalov and sent on his birthday, November 1, 1761.” (Lomonosov M.V. Works ... S. 571).

maternal highest will and command. But there are many murders and still suicides, a people that belittles, whom directly by decrees, without the correction or complete extermination of some customs, and some more, under the name of rooted laws, it is impossible to exterminate.

It has become a custom in many Russian borders, and especially in the villages, that small children, incapable of a marital position, are married to adult girls, and often a wife could be the mother of her husband in years. This controversial behavior is followed by bad circumstances: tearful adventures and harmful murderous murders to the growth of the human race. The first summers after marriage are fruitless, therefore, such a marriage is not a marriage and, moreover, is harmful to the reproduction of the people, because such an adult woman, being an equal, could give birth to several children to society. A boy, prompted by a provocative adult wife, by strengthening himself before the time spoils himself and henceforth in his time will not be quite capable of childbearing, and when he reaches male age, the wife will soon leave those years in which she was more capable of childbearing. Even though she may be knocked up in an unwilling way even in infancy, however, fearing disgrace and reproach and beatings from her husband's parents, she can easily go to child-killing while still in her womb. There are enough such examples that, abhorring a small and stupid peasant, a wife is recognized with another and, in order to marry him, poisons her husband or kills her in some other way, and after being convicted is put to death. And so by these disorders the still unborn die and the guilty and the innocent perish. The second inequality in marriage occurs when a man in old age marries a very young girl which, although not so dangerous, is harmful to the growth of the people, and although the lack of love that is not allowed can be filled, however, this unfriendliness, suspicion, anxiety and litigation in the inheritance and great misfortunes can be the cause. For this, the inequality of matrimony, which is harmful to the multiplication and preservation of the people, must be prohibited and included within moderate limits. In my opinion, the groom's bride should not be older than only two years, and the groom older can be 15 years. This is because women age faster than men, and especially from frequent pregnancy. Women will give birth hardly more than 45 years old, and men are often capable of fertility even up to 60 years old. It is most similar if the husband of the wife is older from 7 to 10 years. Although in the villages they show the reasons that they marry small children for working women, however, everything is a wasteland, then if someone has a small family, but has a lot of arable land or livestock, then hire workers, accept ratters or half-workers, or sell the excess to another.

An unequal marriage is much like a forced one: for where there is no love, fertility is unreliable. Disagreements, disputes and fights harm the fetus conceived and are often the cause of an untimely and immature birth. For this, the crowning priests must firmly confirm that they, having heard somewhere about an involuntary combination, do not allow it and do not marry under fear of deprivation of the rank. The bride and groom would not only be asked for show when they were already brought to church for the wedding, but a little earlier.

Although it is suddenly not allowed to have more than one wife in our law, however, the fourth after the third death is not ordered in our legalizations, except that a certain Armenopulus, a judge of Thessalonica, ordered privately, relying, as I hope, on the words of Nazianzus2: “The first marriage - the law, the second - forgiveness, the third - lawlessness. But this is not approved by any conciliar laws, because he said this as an orator, as a preacher, and not as a legislator; and despite the words of this great saint, the holy church blesses the third marriage, and the fourth prohibition came to us from Thessalonica, and not from ecumenical councils or monarchical and national laws. This habit greatly forbids the growth of the people. I saw many widowers from a third wife about 30 years of my age, and my father was a widow for the third time. Although 50 years old, but still in full vigor and could still marry a fourth. It seems to me that it would not be contrary to the laws if, in order to multiply the people and to avoid unlawful carnal mixtures, and from that unfortunate adventures of the fourth, and out of need, the fifth marriage was allowed, following the example of other Christian peoples. It is true that sometimes it happens, not without doubt, whether everything happened naturally when someone becomes a widow in the third, and moreover, in a few years, and was there not some kind of hidden villainy? For this, a person demanding a fourth or fifth marriage must present as witnesses neighbors or, even better, relatives from the first marriages, that in these actions his actions were gentle and shameless, and who will have likely signs of infidelity or ferocity, and especially in two or in all three matrimony, those individuals are not allowed a fourth marriage.

It has become a custom that it is contrary to human nature (I don’t remember whether it is contrary to the laws, laid down at councils), that widowed young priests and deacons are forcibly tonsured, which gives a reason for sin, not for salvation, and a considerable branch is suppressed for the growth of the people. Ridiculous carelessness! It is not allowed to perform clergy, marrying a second marriage legally, honestly and blessedly, but in the clergy, a fornicator, an adulterer, or even a sodomy, to serve the liturgy and perform all sorts of secrets, is given the will. Is it possible to think that a young person, living in monasticism without any sorrow, being content with food and drink and in everything appearance healthy, strong and fat, would not be subject to carnal lusts, which are always the more intensified, the more strongly they are forbidden. For these reasons, it seems that young widowed priests and deacons should be allowed a second marriage and not be tonsured before the age of fifty or, having removed the rank of priest,

1 This advice (as well as hiring a worker or accepting a share in the farm) indicates that Lomonosov here had in mind the so-called "black-eared" (state) peasants, free from personal serfdom. (Quoted from: Lomonosov M.V. Works. S. 572).

2 Gregory of Nazianzus (Gregory the Theologian, 328 - c. 390) - Christian orator and writer. Solun - Thessaloniki (in Macedonia), the birthplace of Cyril and Methodius, who translated into Old Slavonic liturgical books. - Approx. ed.

chantsy, to allow them to be worldly ranks. This also includes the tonsure of young people directly into monks and nuns, which, although in modern times has diminished compared to the former, there are still many excesses, especially in Little Russia and at synodal schools. Looks, attire, courtesies, luxuries and other deeds everywhere show that monasticism in youth is nothing but fornication and sodomy covered up with a black dress, causing significant damage to the reproduction of the human race, without mentioning infanticides, when crime is covered up with atrocity, It seems to me that it is necessary to ban the hood for men under 50, and for women under 45 years old.

The foregoing concerned more up to the most abundant fertility, those who give birth, the following applies especially to the preservation of those born. Although the prohibition of unequal and forced matrimony, the permission of the fourth and fifth marriages, the permission to marry widowed priests and deacons, and the prohibition of accepting the monastic rank until the specified years, a noble increase in the people can undoubtedly follow and there will not be so many illegitimate children, therefore, there will be less child murder, however, different occasions and due to the weakness of human constitution, it is impossible that a woman burdened with unallowable voluptuousness or violence, not wanting to be dishonored, would not look for ways to hide her lawlessness and misfortune, which is why mothers sometimes kill their children in despair. To avoid such a terrible villainy and to save the lives of innocent babies, it would be necessary to establish purposely alms-houses for unrequited shameful children to the reception, where almighty old women could go after them instead of mothers or grandmothers; but about this especially in a letter on the correction and reproduction of handicrafts and arts.

Infantile illnesses follow this, exhausting and plunging into the jaws of death the beginning of human life, of which the first and most severe torment is birth itself. The baby suffers no less than the mother, and their languor differs only in that the mother remembers it, the baby does not remember. How great it is, David the prophet expresses, for, although he portrays the terrible enemies of his sorrow, he says: “There is sickness as if giving birth” (that is, women). Passing a painful path in a sad and vain light, since often a tender person undergoes great damage, and especially in the head, by the fact that at his very birth he loses a barely begun life and the first drawn spirit in the last emits either several hours or days only with real death. is fighting. This is the first suffering, by which the health of those born alive is often damaged for the whole life. Nothing else can prevent this, or at least somewhat alleviate it, as with the art of midwives and the caution of pregnant women. Then follows a disease when the teeth come out, often fatal to infants, when it brings with it a particularly epilepsy disease. Also hernias, smallpox, dryness, worms in the stomach and other deaths of childhood causes, all require knowledge of how to treat those gentle diseases. To diminish only the great evil, I advise you to take the following into action: 1) Choose good books about midwifery and, putting the best as a basis, compose an instruction in Russian or, having written in another, translate it into Russian, to which you must add the good tricks of Russian skillful midwives, for this, having called the elected ones, who know the business with a long-term art, ask each one especially and everyone in general, and, what will be accepted for good, enter into this little book. 2) For the cure of other childhood diseases, laying as a foundation the great physician Hoffmann1, who, having practiced in 60 years in the doctorate, at the end of his life wrote an instruction on the cure of infantile diseases, according to which I saved my daughter from death twice, and adding from others the best, to combine with the aforementioned book on midwifery, moreover, do not forget that our grandmothers and healers generally use it with benefit. 3) In both of these combined arts] in one book to observe that for the most part it was not difficult to find methods and medicines everywhere in Russia, then because we have so few pharmacies that not only in every city, but also in noble great cities until now they have not been arranged, which should have been taken care of long ago, but this will be especially presented. 4) Having printed this book in sufficient quantity, to sell it to the whole state in all churches, so that priests and literate people reading could know themselves and use others for guidance. According to the calculation of the dead by parish, made in Paris, comparing their years, almost as many babies die in the first three years as in the others, counting up to a hundred. Let's assume that there are 12 million males in Russia, of whom one million are married in such a way that children are born, putting in total, one in two years. Therefore, for each year there will be half a million born, of which half will die in three years, or even more due to local negligence, so that in every year a hundred thousand babies will die in participation, not more than three years old. Is it not worth our labor and care, so that at least a tenth, that is, 10 thousand, can be convenient ways keep in life?

1 Hoffmann Friedrich (1660-1742) - a German doctor who used in the 18th century. great popularity. - Approx. ed.

2 “Experiments of Lomonosov and his friend Academician I.A. Brown in 1759, freezing of mercury was achieved for the first time ”(Lomonosov M.V. Works. P. 572).

Good for a baby that has recently come out of a warm mother's womb, of course, is harmful, and especially one who has undergone a lot in birth. One immersion in temperate water is not without burden for an infant, when sputum flows into the eyes, ears, nostrils, and sometimes into the mouth (and when the mouth and nostrils are blocked pop hand then breathing is stopped, which the baby has only recently received). When cold water with ice covers the limbs, then signs of an epilepsy are often visible, and although it will get rid of the font alive, however, in the following diseases, which every baby must overcome afterward, and especially when the first teeth come out, this deadly disease will more conveniently resume. Such stubborn priests, who want to forcefully baptize with cold water, I consider executioners, because they want after their births and christenings soon and a funeral for their own self-interest. How many unhappy parents are there, who have given birth to 10 or 15 children, and not a single one is left alive?

The disastrous infantile beginning of life is followed by adventures that attack human health in the rest of it. And, firstly, intemperance and carelessness with established customs, especially in Russia, which have taken root and have the appearance of a certain holiness. More than other times, Shrove Tuesday and St. a week, a great multitude of people, by the alternating use of food and drink alone. It is easy to reason that, preparing for abstinence great post, in all of Russia, many people are so full of shit that there is no time left for fasting. The dead in the taverns, along the streets and along the roads, and frequent burials clearly prove this. Conversation is like that. And why not wonder? In addition to intemperance on sacrificial days with drink and food, many try for the whole of Great Lent to be content with carnal mixing legally and lawlessly, and so exhaust themselves until Clean Monday that they cannot repair their health by any measure, using coarse fasting foods, which even a healthy stomach painful. Moreover, the beginning of spring soon follows, when all the filthiness accumulated from humans and from other animals, which were imprisoned all winter from frost, is suddenly released and fills the air, mixes with water and we with wet and scurvy fish into the stomach, into the lungs, into the blood, into the nerves, and into the whole structure of the vital members human body pour in, give birth to diseases in the healthy, multiply them in the sick, and hasten death in those who could still live longer. After that, the bright resurrection of Christ approaches - universal Christian joy - then, although the passions of the Lord are almost constantly read and repeated many times, our thoughts are already on the holy. weeks. Another imagines pleasant and modest food; another thinks whether his dress will be in time for the holiday; another imagines how he will have fun with relatives and friends, another waits for supplies to arrive from the village, another prepares picturesque eggs and undoubtedly looks forward to an opportunity to kiss beauties or to have a nicer date. At last Matins began at midnight and mass was served before dawn. Christ is Risen! only in the ears and in the tongue, but in the heart what a place for him, where worldly desires and the smallest wells are all filled. Like dogs let loose from a leash, like accumulated water from an open dam, like whirlwinds breaking through from a cloud - they tear, break, bring down, refute, torment; there are scattered different meats fragmented parts, broken dishes, spilled drinks flow, there lie unconsciously weighed down by gluttony and drunkenness, there lay naked and exhausted by fornication recent strict fasters. O true Christian fasting and feast! Isn’t it with such that God is indignant in the prophet: “My soul hates your feasts, and your censer is an abomination before me!” Meanwhile, the poor stomach, having become accustomed after a long time to low-nutrient foods, is suddenly forced to take fat and greasy brashn into shrinking and weakened passages and, not having the required contentment of vital juices, sends undigested food through the veins: they spiral, the blood flow is stopped, and the soul in the heavenly doors that were opened then flies right out of the tightness of the body. To be sure about this, you can consult church records, about which time in the whole year the priests more honey comes to kutya? It is an undeniable fact that the unequal course of life and the abruptly variable nutrition of the body is not only harmful to a person, but also deadly, so that the above-mentioned strict fasters, moreover, zealous and zealous holiday-lovers, can be considered suicides. It is true that if someone prepares for fasting at Shrovetide by a moderate life, he does not exhaust himself unnecessarily during fasting and fasts more with his spirit than with his belly, on St. during the week he rejoices at the passage to [great] fasting in true virtues, in works useful to society and kind to God, and not that he lived to see the resolution of everything - he, of course, will feel less seizures from an unhealthy time, and especially when blood works sets in motion and, in a word, sustains itself with at least 10 lean, sometimes modest foods, but equally moderate, without steep jumps and hillocks. But here, in the North, this is fat at the ends, and in the middle the dry time is the most idle part of the year, when the peasants have no great work and only the sown, reaped, threshed and ground fruits of the field are eaten up. Merchants, behind spoiled roads and mudslides, have almost no travel from city to city with goods; there is no contented movement for sailing ships and sea people; military people are on campaigns in winter quarters, and at home, sometimes for frost, sometimes for slush, exercises cannot be convenient. So most of the people must remain in idleness, which, in contemplation and breaking the fast, gives rise to unbridled luxury, and in fasting, combined with last year’s bad food and unhealthy air, spoils health and shortens life.

Many will say: “Yes, people live! our fathers and great-grandfathers lived for many centuries!” Truth! Lapps also live, eating almost only fish; Yes, look at how big they are in body and how crowded, and compare them with the Samoyeds living in the same climate, who eat mostly meat. The first are small in height, not crowded, so that at 700 miles long and 300 wide, there are only few Lapps, that in large soldier sets from all over the world, two soldiers from the number of souls are hired from our people, then from. they are very rare, so that someone, and to a small extent, was fit for soldiers. Samoyeds, on the contrary, are not small in stature, broad-shouldered and strong, and in such a multitude that if internecine frequent bloody battles between many of their princelings had not happened, then the noble part of the East-Northern coast would have been populated by them crowdedly. See that those Russian regions are more populous, where livestock is more abundant, then that in many places where livestock is scarce, and in the meat-eater, for the most part, they eat fish or empty cabbage soup with bread. If our Maslenitsa had been laid in the month of May, then Great Lent would have been in full spring and early summer, and St. a week around St. Peter's Day, it would be, except for new

the fruits of earthly and fresh fish and well-dissolved air, 1st) the movement of the body in the peasants by arable work, in the merchant class - by long-distance travel by land and by sea, by the military - by exercising and campaigns, would hasten to maintain health; 2-e) for the sake of correcting such necessary work there would be less idleness, the mother of intemperance, less guests and feasts, less drunkenness, unequal living and intermittent food, tearing human health. And besides, even if someone got drunk, however, returning home, he would not freeze on the road, as happens at Shrovetide, and would not fall through the ice, as happens at St. week.

I am addressing you, great teachers and arrangers of fasts and holidays, and with all reverence I ask your holiness, what did you think of us at that time, when St. great post set at this time? It seems to me that you, in your holiness, meekness, patience and honesty, will give a merciful answer and not in the same way as Andreev's archpriest Yakov1 did - you won’t choose obscenely in the church or else, - like he and the sea captain Yankov on bright Sunday at the cross for not kissing his hand he entered: do not hit him in the chest with your fist. You will say: “Having fasts and feasts, we lived in Greece and in the promised land; 2 then we established the holy fortecost, when the earthly rich bowels open with the full radiance of the spring sun, it grows with healthy juices filled with young greenery and the air renews with fragrant perfumes . Early fruits ripen, serving as food, cooling and medicine. Our singing for the glorification of God corresponded to murmuring streams, rustling leaves and singing sweet-voiced birds; and about your midnight side, we reasoned that not only there is not and will not be a Christian law, but below a single verbal inhabitant for the sake of a great cold. Don't complain about us! How would we prescribe for you to eat dates and figs and drink good grape wine according to krasoul, which will not be born to you? Arrange, as intelligent people do, according to your climate; use another most capable time for fasting, or at a bad time eat moderately healthy foods. You have a clergy, equal to us in power from Christ, having to knit and decide. For such an important cause, an ecumenical council can be composed in Russia: the preservation of the life of only a great multitude of people is worth it. And besides, by teaching, instill in everyone the idea that it is more pleasing to God when we have a clear conscience in our hearts than scurvy fish in our stomachs, that fasts are established not for suicide with harmful food, but for refraining from excess, that a deceiver, a robber, an unjust, a bribe taker , the thief and other images of his neighbor will not find forgiveness, even if he ate wood chips, brick, bast, clay and coal instead of ordinary fasting food for seven weeks and would stand on his head instead of prostrating for most of that time. Pure repentance is a good life, bowing God to mercy, to generosity and to our love. Save] the commandments given by Christ, on which all the icons and prophets hang: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart (that is, not with your guts) and your neighbor as yourself (i.e., with your conscience, and not with your tongue)." There are terrible obstacles to correcting this deficiency, but not more dangerous how to make them shave their beards, wear a German dress, communicate courtesy with non-believers, force the sailors to eat meat during the summer fasts, destroy the boyars, the patriarchate and the archers, and instead establish the Governing Senate, the Holy Synod, a new regular army, transfer the capital to an empty place and New Year another month! The Russian people are flexible!

In addition, a great many people also fall into various other diseases, for the cure of which there are still very few decent institutions, as mentioned above, and only mostly simple, illiterate men and women are treated at random, often combining natural methods, as far as they understand, with divination and whispering, and thus they not only do not give any strength to their medicines, but they also strengthen superstition in people, they fear the sick with dull looks and increase the disease, bringing them closer to death. True, there are many of them who really know how to treat certain diseases, and especially external ones, like horse-dressers and chiropractors, so that sometimes even learned surgeons are superior in some cases, but it’s better to establish medical science according to the rules. To this, a sufficient number of doctors, healers and pharmacies are required in all cities, satisfied with medicines, although only decent in our climate, which is not only not even a hundredth part, but the Russian army is not quite well equipped with doctors, so that doctors do not have time to bandage and the wounded, not only to examine everyone, ask about the circumstances, give medicines and thereby calm the suffering. From such disdain, many who would come to life die. Nothing can fill this shortcoming as quickly as to send a sufficient number of Russian students to foreign universities to study the doctorate, and to give universities established and continue to be established within the state, among other privileges, the power to produce worthy doctors. 2nd. to confirm firmly to the medical office that both in pharmacies and with doctors there would be a sufficient number of Russian students, whom they would certain time they taught their art and represented the Senate. It is a shame and annoyance to hear that the students of the Russian people, having been in pharmacies for ten or more years, are not able to compose almost any medicines, but for what? Because the pharmacists still keep German apprentices, and the Russians, under the yoke, under the sieve, and under the coal, live to old age and die as apprentices, and you can’t fill the entire state with Germans. Moreover, insufficient knowledge of the language, the difference of faith, dissimilar customs and expensive wages hinder them a lot.

Deaths from disease are followed by violent, natural and accidental circumstances as causes of deprivation. human life, i.e. plagues, fires, drownings, frosts. Whilst in the southern borders of the local state, fads against people, for the most part, occur, but all sorts of ways against it should be used. They consist in the destruction of what has already begun or in the aversion of what is coming. The first requires certain means to be used against such a misfortune, and in order to do this, the best should be chosen from the authors, compose a book for the Faculty of Medicine4 and, after printing, sell it all over the state. To the second

1 "Meaning the archpriest of St. Andrew's Cathedral on Vasilyevsky Island in St. Petersburg." (Lomonosov M.V. Works. S. 572)

2 in Palestine. - Approx. ed.

3 "Krasoulya - a bowl used at the monastery meal." (Lomonosov M.V. Works. S. 572)

"Meaning the Medical Faculty of Moscow University, opened in 1755." (Ibid.).

rum needs c former examples collect signs, of which the main one is an eclipse of the sun, which almost always causes a death to cattle, and then a plague on people. In our enlightened ages, people who circulate from astronomers know about this in the great light and can take precautions not to let the cattle out of the house and not to give the grass that was harvested that day - just like in other states they are wary of two or three days after, and themselves no fruit on that day. time is not removed and not used, saying that poisonous dews fall during a solar eclipse. main reason be it seems in my opinion that during an eclipse it closes sun moon, with the same body as our earth, the electric force is abruptly suppressed, which the sun pours out on all plants all day long, as can be seen on the grasses that sleep at night and also suffer in solar eclipse. Time will teach how much the electric force can act in the reasoning of the fad. Eclipses are not known throughout the state, and for this it is necessary to publish in advance and what needs to be ordered by decrees, following the example that applies to other states. To get rid of a fiery death, there is a precaution to extinguish frequent and great fires, about which it will seem at length in a letter on better state economy. The essence of drowning is twofold: from flooding and from careless insolence, especially in drunkenness. The first can be easily averted by forbidding that by the great rivers in low places, especially subject to spring water, there should be no dwellings. This is done out of sheer laziness, so that water and hay and all conveniences from water are close, but often in high places those who live see in the spring, being themselves safe, how cattle and people and whole houses impregnable ice brings in despair of any salvation. The second sinkings cannot be averted by anything without detracting from a lot of visiting and drunkenness, for which people dare to cross rivers in stormy weather, overloading ships with a multitude, or to cross ice in autumn and spring, when it is very unreliable and dangerous. In the chapter on the destruction of idleness, methods will be proposed, as well as for delivering the freezing of many in winter.

Not a small damage is caused to the people by murders, which happen in fights and from robbers. There are harmful fights between neighbors, and especially between landlords, who cannot be extinguished by anything like land surveying. Although detectives are sent to the robbers, there is almost no hope to bring out this evil through it, or even significantly reduce it. Fundamental and strongest methods are required for this. The next one seems to me more reliable, more thrifty, and more glorious and more amiable to the most merciful monarch, because he will have his effect with less shedding of human blood. Robbers without shelter in cities and near villages cannot stay and use their villainy for a long time. They stay near the villages, but in the cities they usually often come to sell plundered belongings. And so, when these places are made narrow and cramped for them, they cannot hide for a long time, they will not need to send commands far and do bloody battles with many, when you can have the opportunity to go through one by one and catch them often. The all-desired and long-term peace within our fatherland, a hundred and fifty years later, at some time after the devastation from the Poles1 it was not necessary to protect ourselves from enemies with walls, gave our negligence a reason to have little care for city fences, and therefore most of the small towns and towns and many provincial and provincial cities do not only have stone walls or even reliable ramparts and ditches, but also do not have wooden front gardens or tyns, which is not without regret below from the answers sent to geographic questions to the Academy of Sciences from all cities by decree of the Governing Senate, in my opinion2. In addition to the fact that passing foreigners do not look without contempt at our disorderly cities, or, rather, almost at ruins, the robbers use them as their refuge and can also hide themselves from worthy punishment in the city or even better than in the countryside, because the city more and from all sides in it, in every place, the gates day and night are constantly open to thieves and good people. When would the most merciful command be pleased with everything Russian cities, in which the fence collapsed or did not exist, strengthen although not stone walls, but only with a cash and a moat and a high front garden and not in many places leave gates with strong locks and with reliable petty-bourgeois guards, where there are no garrisons, so that the rows and shops were inside the fence, it would be very it was difficult and it was incomparably easier to use everything for precautionary inspection than in a place open on all sides, and a robber can be more likely to be noticed at the gate, who, without selling robbed things, will not receive self-interest. In addition, in each walled city, appoint permanent lodging for the night for passers-by and travelers with written permission and with a sign, and order that each owner on every day announce in the town hall who was at his lodging for the night and how long, and the other philistines should be taken to his place. house visitors and passers-by had no will, under fear of punishment, except for their relatives, known in the city. To publish in all volosts, graveyards and villages that if a peasant or two or more catch a robber, bring him to a city or other safe place and prove it with reliable witnesses and there will be no dispute about this, then give the drivers 10 rubles for each head. from the petty-bourgeois state tax, and for the main villainous leaders, for the ataman, esaul, as well as for catching and arguing the one who holds the thieves' shelters, 30 rubles each. Although this seems to be enough, where the cities are not very far away, however, there are many places in Russia that are deaf, for 500 or more miles without cities, direct shelters for robbers and all kinds of fugitive and passportless people: an example is the wooded area near the Vetluga River , which, stretching for 700 miles from the peaks to the mouth, does not have a single city with it. There, from the Volga, a great number of barge haulers hide in winter, of which not a small part are robbers. The peasants keep them all winter for half a person, and if he works, they feed him without pay, without asking for a passport. In such places, cities should be founded and set up, giving noble villages civil rights, to establish town halls and voivodeships and to secure reliable fortifications

1 We are talking about the Polish intervention of 1611-1612. - Approx. ed.

2 “Lomonosov, in charge of the Geographical Department of the Academy of Sciences, developed in 1759 a questionnaire method for the statistical and economic survey of Russia and entered the Senate with a proposal to send the compiled questionnaire to all regions. Lomonosov's proposal was accepted." (Quoted from: Lomonosov M.V. Works. S. 572)

lenies and cautions from robbers, as shown above. This will serve not only for the general security and preservation of the Russian people, but also for the special glory of our most merciful autocrat, as the regenerator of the old and the co-builder of many new Russian cities.

Stopping talking about the loss of the Russian people by disease, misfortune and murder, we must mention the living dead. From the border places people leave for foreign states, and especially for Poland, and thus the Russian crown is deprived of subjects. It is true that by placing precautions at the Lithuanian border, however, it is impossible to completely lock up only a great well by force: it is better to act with meekness. Escapes are more from landlord burdens to peasants and from soldier's sets. And so it seems to me that it is better for the inhabitants of the border with Poland to lighten with taxes and remove soldier sets, placing them throughout the state. It takes a lot to split Russian people to Vetka: can’t the fugitives who are there be returned in the current case of war?

The place of fugitives abroad can conveniently be filled with the reception of foreigners, if decent measures are used for this. The current unfortunate in Europe war time compels not only lonely people, but also entire ruined families to leave their fatherland and look for places remote from military violence. The vast possession of our great monarch is able to accommodate entire peoples and their safe bowels and to satisfy all sorts of needs, which expect the only possible work from people for their useful work. I can’t imagine the conditions by which foreigners can be attracted to settle in Russia, not knowing the rather allied and hostile circumstances between the belligerents and peaceful parties.

I would like to compose an approximate account, no matter how many of these 13 ways (and there are more) followed the preservation and growth of the subjects of Her Imperial Majesty. However, many circumstances and not a little time are required for the news to be known, for that, with only one guess, I reach a few, that each year the growth of the Russian people can rise more than the previous one up to half a million souls, and from revision to revision in 20 years to 10 million . In addition, I hope that these methods will not burden the people in any way, but will serve to the safety and tranquility of the people.

Finishing this, I hope that Your Excellency will like something from my opinions that are friendly to society, and I ask for your uninterrupted health and in all the pleasure of the Almighty builder and ruler of all peoples and languages, who produced you on this day and poured you the blood of the son of the fatherland to to the work of useful deeds, and even more so to the patronage of the sciences and arts, to which I, as well as to you, from all sincerity, zealous, with due high reverence abide.

November 1 1761

1 “Vetka - a river in the basin of the river. Sozh. Up to 40 thousand Russian Old Believers lived in the Vetka settlements (then in Poland) ”(quoted from: Lomonosov M.V. Works. P. 572).

Lomonosov sent this letter to I.I. Shuvalov on November 1, 1761. It was published several times, but not during the lifetime of the scientist. For the first time excerpts from the letter were published in the "Journal of Ancient and Modern Literature" in 1819. This treatise dismayed and horrified officials, as well as the reactionary Minister of Education and Spiritual Affairs A. N. Golitsyn, by whose order it was recognized that Lomonosov's letter to the public should be prohibited," since it contains "reprehensible, unfair thoughts, contrary to the Orthodox Church and insulting the honor of our clergy."

The next publication (also in abbreviated form) was published in 1842 - in the "scientific and literary journal" "Moskvityanin". Published it Chief Editor and the founder of the magazine - the famous Russian historian and publicist Mikhail Pogodin.

Only 110 years after it was written, having lost its relevance and significance, the letter was published in full in the St. Petersburg Historical Bulletin - "Russian Antiquity". From a historical point of view, it is of particular importance, because it demonstrates the true state of affairs Russia XVIII in. It is symbolic to this day, because, like 250 years ago, the problem with the "reproduction and preservation of the Russian people" remains unresolved.

We print Lomonosov's letter while maintaining the integrity of the author's spelling, since it would be a sin to change the characteristic features of Lomonosov's letter.

MIKHAIL VASILIEVICH LOMONOSOV.

On the reproduction and preservation of the Russian people. 1761

Gracious sovereign Ivan Ivanovich.

Analyzing my writings, I found old notes of my thoughts, extending to the increment of the common benefit. After consideration, it was decided for me, for the benefit of a more extensive and detailed report to your Excellency, as a true zealot, about every good thing of the dear fatherland in the hope, perhaps, there will be something in them that will serve for the real correction of the Russian world, which is sorted out by your insight and diligence, located and can be brought to true execution. All these thoughts, noticed separately at different times, can, as it seems to me, be summed up under the following chapters:

1. On the reproduction and preservation of the Russian people.

2. About the extermination of idleness.

3. About the correction of morals and about more people enlightenment.

4. About the correction of agriculture.

5. On the correction and reproduction of handicrafts and arts.

6. About the best benefits of the merchant class.

7. About the best state economy.

8. On the preservation of military art during a long-term peace.

These only important chapters require deep reasoning, long-term in public affairs art to explanation and precautionary power to work into action. And so, m. g., excuse my insolence that, not having the necessary ability for this, I only touch a heavy burden only out of zeal, which does not allow me to leave anything (even if only apparently) useful to society under a bushel. I consider the beginning of this to be the most important thing: the preservation and reproduction of the Russian people, in which lies the majesty, power and wealth of the entire state, and not in the vastness, futile without inhabitants. It is a divine deed and a merciful and philanthropic monarch of our meek heart a worthy deed - to save subjects from death, even though others were worthy according to the laws. This pardon is obvious and directly dependent on her maternal highest will and command. But there is much homicide and even suicide, a people that belittles, whom directly by decrees, without the correction or complete extermination of some customs, and some more, under the name of rooted laws, it is impossible to exterminate.

There are enough such examples that, abhorring a small and stupid peasant, a wife is recognized with another and, in order to marry him, she pits her husband or kills her in some other way, and after being convicted is put to death. And so, by these disturbances the unborn die, and the guilty and the innocent perish.

The second inequality in marriage occurs when a man in old age marries a very young girl, which, although not so dangerous, is nevertheless harmful to the growth of the people, and although the lack of love may be filled with unallowed love, this hostility, suspicion, anxiety and litigation in the inheritance and great misfortunes are the cause. For this, the inequality of matrimony, which is harmful to the multiplication and preservation of the people, must be prohibited and included within moderate limits.

In my opinion, the groom's bride should not be older than only two years, and the groom older can be 15 years. This is because women age faster than men, and especially from frequent pregnancy. Women will give birth just after 45 years, and men are often capable of fertility even up to 60 years.

It is most similar if the husband of the wife is older from 7 to 10 years. Although in the villages they show the reasons that they marry small children for working women, however, everything is a wasteland, then if someone has a small family, but has a lot of arable land or livestock, then hire workers, take thirds or half-workers, or sell the excess to another.

An unequal marriage is much like a forced one, for where there is no love, fertility is also unreliable. Disagreements, disputes and fights harm the fetus conceived and are often the cause of an untimely and immature birth. For this, it is necessary for the crowning priests to firmly confirm that, having heard where about an involuntary combination, they would not allow it and would not be married under fear of deprivation of the rank, the groom and the bride would not only be asked for show when they were already brought to church for the wedding, but several before.

Although it is not allowed to have more than one wife in our law, however, the fourth after the third death is not ordered in our legalizations, except that a certain Armenopulus, a judge of Thessalonica, ordered privately, relying, as I hope, on the words of Nazianzus: “The first marriage is a law, the second is forgiveness, the third is transgression." But this is not approved by any conciliar laws, because he said this as an orator, as a preacher, and not as a legislator, and, despite the words of this great saint, the holy church blesses the third marriage, and the fourth prohibition came to us from Thessalonica, and not from ecumenical councils or monarchical and national laws.

This habit greatly forbids the growth of the people. I saw many widowers from a third wife about 30 years of my age, and my father was a widow for the third time, although at 50 years old, but still in his full vigor and could still marry a fourth.

It seems to me that it would not be contrary to the laws if, in order to multiply the people and to avoid unlawful carnal mixtures, and from that unfortunate adventures, a fourth, and out of necessity, a fifth marriage was allowed, following the example of other Christian peoples.

It is true that sometimes it happens, not without doubt, whether everything happened naturally when someone becomes a widow in the third and, moreover, in a few years, and was there not some kind of hidden villainy? For this, a person demanding a fourth or fifth marriage must present as witnesses neighbors or, even better, relatives from the first marriages, that in these actions his actions were gentle and shameless, and who will have likely signs of infidelity or ferocity, and especially in two or in all three matrimony, those individuals are not allowed a fourth marriage.

It has become a custom that it is contrary to human nature (I don’t remember whether it is contrary to the laws, laid down at the councils), that widowed young priests and deacons are forcibly tonsured, which gives a reason for sin, and not for salvation, and a considerable branch is stopped from the growth of the people. Ridiculous carelessness! It is not allowed to perform clergy, marrying a second marriage legally, honestly and blessedly, but in the clergy, a fornicator, an adulterer, or even a sodomy, to serve the liturgy and perform all sorts of secrets, is given the will.

Is it possible to think that a young person, living in monasticism without any sorrow, content with food and drink, and in all appearance healthy, strong and fat, would not be subject to carnal lusts, which are always the more intensified, the more strongly they are forbidden.

For these reasons, it seems that young widowed priests and deacons should be allowed a second marriage and not be tonsured before the age of fifty, or, having removed the rank of the priesthood, allowed to be worldly ranks. This also includes the tonsure of young people directly into monks and nuns, which, although in modern times has diminished compared to the former, there are still many excesses, especially in Little Russia and at synodal schools. Looks, attire, courtesies, luxuries and other deeds everywhere show that monasticism in youth is nothing but fornication and sodomy covered with a black dress, causing notable damage to the reproduction of the human race, not to mention the occasional child murders, when the crime is covered up with atrocity. It seems to me that it is necessary to ban klobuk for men under 50, and for women under 45.

The foregoing referred more to the most abundant fertility of those giving birth; the following is especially necessary before the preservation of those born. Although the prohibition of unequal and forced matrimony, the permission of the fourth and fifth marriages, the permission to marry widowed priests and deacons, and the non-permission to take the monastic rank until the indicated years, a noble increase in the people can undoubtedly follow and there will not be so many illegitimate children, therefore, there will be less child murder, however, different reasons and due to the weakness of human constitution, it is impossible that a woman burdened with unallowed voluptuousness or violence, not wanting to be dishonored, would not look for ways to hide her lawlessness and misfortune, which is why mothers sometimes kill their children in despair.

To avoid such a terrible villainy and to save the lives of innocent babies, it would be necessary to establish special almshouses for unrestricted shameful children at the reception, where almshouse old women could go after them instead of mothers or grandmothers; but about this especially, in a letter on the correction and reproduction of handicrafts and arts.

This is followed by infantile illnesses, exhausting and plunging into the jaws of death the beginning of human life, of which the first and most severe torment is birth itself. The baby suffers no less than the mother, and their languor differs only in that the mother remembers it, the baby does not remember. How great it is, David the prophet expresses, for, although he portrays the terrible enemies of his sorrow, he says: “There is sickness as if giving birth” (that is, women). Passing a painful path into a sad and vain light, if often gentle person undergoes great damage, and especially in the head, by the fact that at its very birth it is deprived of a barely begun life, and the spirit drawn for the first time in the last emits either several hours or days only struggles with real death. This is the first suffering, by which the health of those born alive is often damaged for the whole life.

Nothing else can prevent this, or at least somewhat alleviate it, as with the art of midwives and the caution of pregnant women. Then follows a disease when the teeth come out, often deadly to infants, when it brings with it a particularly falling disease. Also hernias, smallpox, dryness, worms in the stomach and other deaths of childhood causes, all require knowledge of how to treat tender body diseases.

To diminish only the great evil, I advise you to do the following:

1) Choose good books about the art of midwifery and, putting the best as a basis, compose an instruction in Russian or, having written in another, translate into Russian, to which it is necessary to add the good tricks of Russian skilled midwives; for this, having called together the elected, by long-term art knowing the business, ask each one especially and everyone in general, and, what will be accepted for good, enter into this little book.

2) For the cure of other childhood diseases, laying as a foundation the great physician Hoffmann, who, having practiced in 60 years in the doctorate, at the end of his life wrote an instruction on the cure of infantile diseases, according to which I saved my daughter from death twice, and adding the best from others , connect with the above book about midwifery; moreover, do not forget that our grandmothers and doctors generally use it with benefit.

3) In both these arts combined in one book, to observe that for the most part it was not difficult to find methods and medicines everywhere in Russia, because we have so few pharmacies that not only in every city, but even in noble great cities there are still no arranged, which should have been taken care of long ago; but this will be especially presented.

4) Having printed this book in sufficient quantity, to sell it to the whole state in all churches, so that priests and literate people, reading, could know themselves and use others for guidance.

According to the calculation of the dead by parish, carried out in Paris, comparing their years, almost as many babies die in the first three years as in others, counting up to a hundred.

So, let us suppose that in Russia there are 12 million males, of which one million are in such a marriage that children are born, putting in total, one in two years. Therefore, every year there will be half a million born, of whom half die in three years, or even more due to local negligence, so that every year there will be a hundred thousand babies not more than three years old. Isn't it worth our labor and care, so that at least a tenth, that is, 10 thousand, can be preserved in life in convenient ways?

From freezing into ice, water takes in a cold of up to 130 degrees, and even here you can consider it hot, because freezing mercury has an incomparably greater distance from this degree than water from boiling water to freezing.

However, there is no need for ignorant priests to interpret physics, it is enough to force them by the authorities to always baptize with water, equal to summer warmth in reasoning, because the cold is certainly harmful to a baby who has recently come out of a warm mother's womb, and especially who has undergone a lot in birth. One immersion in temperate water is not without burden to the infant, when phlegm enters the eyes, ears, nostrils, and sometimes even into the mouth (and when the mouth and nostrils are blocked by the hand, then breathing is stopped, which the infant has only recently received). When cold water with ice engulfs the limbs, signs of an epilepsy are often visible, and although he will get rid of the font alive, however, in the following diseases, which every baby must overcome afterward, and especially when the first teeth come out, this deadly disease will more conveniently resume.

Such stubborn priests, who want to forcefully baptize with cold water, I consider executioners, because they want after their births and christenings soon and a funeral for their own self-interest. How many unfortunate parents are there, who gave birth to up to 10 and 15 children, and not a single one remained alive?

It is easy to judge that, in preparation for the abstention of Great Lent, in all of Russia many people are so full of shit that there is no time left for fasting. The dead in the taverns, along the streets and along the roads, and frequent burials clearly prove this.

Conversation is like that. Yes, and nothing to marvel at. In addition to intemperance on sacramental days with drink and food, many try for the entire Great Lent to be satisfied with carnal mixing legally and lawlessly, and so exhaust themselves until Clean Monday that they cannot repair their health by any measure, using coarse fasting foods, which are painful even for a healthy stomach.

Moreover, the beginning of spring soon follows, when all the filthiness accumulated from humans and from other animals, which were imprisoned all winter from frost, is suddenly released and fills the air, mixes with water, and we, with wet and scurvy fish, into the stomach, into the lung, into blood flows into the nerves and into the whole structure of the vital members of the human body, gives birth to diseases in the healthy, multiplies them in the sick and hastens death in those who could still live longer.

After that, the bright resurrection of Christ approaches, universal Christian joy; then, although the passions of the Lord are read almost incessantly and repeatedly repeated, our thoughts are already in St. week. Another imagines pleasant and modest meals, another thinks whether his dress will be in time for the holiday, another imagines how he will have fun with relatives and friends, another waits for supplies to arrive from the village, another prepares picturesque eggs and undoubtedly looks forward to kissing beauties or better date. At last Matins began at midnight and mass was served before dawn. Christ is Risen! only in the ears and in the tongue, but in the heart what a place for him, where worldly desires and the smallest wells are all filled.

Like dogs released from a leash, like accumulated water from an open dam, like whirlwinds breaking through from a cloud, they tear, break, knock down, refute, torment. There are scattered parts of various meats, broken parts, broken dishes, spilled drinks flow, there they lie unconsciously weighed down by gluttony and drunkenness, there lay naked and exhausted by fornication recent strict fasters. O true Christian fasting and feast! Is it not with such that God is indignant at the prophet: “My soul hates your feasts, and your abomination censer is before me!”

Meanwhile, the poor stomach, having become accustomed through debts to low-nutrient foods, is suddenly forced to take fat and strong brashn into the contracted and weakened passages and, not having the required contentment of vital juices, sends undigested food through the veins, they spiral, the blood flow is stopped, and the soul in the heavenly doors that were opened then flies right out of the tightness of the body. To be sure about this, you can consult church records: around what time in the whole year do the priests produce more honey for kutya?

It is an undeniable fact that the unequal course of life and the abruptly changing nutrition of the body is not only harmful to a person, but also deadly, so that the aforementioned strict fasters, moreover, zealous and zealous holiday-lovers, can be considered suicides.

It is true that if someone prepares for fasting at Shrovetide by a moderate life, he does not exhaust himself unnecessarily during fasting and fasts more with his spirit than with his belly, on St. during the week he rejoices in the passage of great fasting in true virtues, in works useful to society and kind to God, and not that he lived to see the resolution of everything, he, of course, will feel less seizures from unhealthy time, but especially when labor sets the blood in motion and , in a word, contains itself , although sometimes lean, sometimes modest food, but equally moderate, without steep jumps and hillocks.

But here, in the north, this time is fat at the ends, and in the middle the dry time is the most idle part of the year, when the peasants do not have any big work and only the sown, reaped, ground and ground fruits of the field eat up; merchants, behind spoiled roads and mudslides, have almost no travel from city to city with goods; there is no contented movement for sailing ships and sea people; military people are on campaigns in winter quarters, and at home, sometimes for frost, sometimes for slush, exercises cannot be convenient. So, most of the people should remain in idleness, which, in contemplation and breaking the fast, gives rise to unbridled luxury, and in fasting, combined with last year's bad food and unhealthy air, spoils health and shortens life.

Samoyeds, on the contrary, are not small, broad-shouldered and strong, and in such a multitude that if internecine frequent bloody battles between many of their princelings did not happen, then the noble part of the east-north coast would be populated by them crowdedly.

See that those Russian regions are more populous, where livestock is more abundant, then that in many places where livestock is scarce, and in the meat-eater, for the most part, they eat fish or empty cabbage soup with bread. If our Maslenitsa had been laid in the month of May, then Great Lent would have been in full spring and early summer, and St. a week around Peter's Day, then, in addition to new fruits of the earth and fresh fish and favorable air,

1-e) the movement of the body in the peasants by arable work would hasten to preserve health, in the merchant class by long-distance travel on land and by sea, in the military - by exercise and campaigns;

2-e) for the sake of correcting such necessary work, there would be less idleness, a mother of intemperance, less guests and feasts, less drunkenness, unequal living and intermittent meals that tear human health, and moreover, even if someone got drunk, however, returning home, I wouldn’t freeze on the road, as happens at Shrove Tuesday, and I wouldn’t fall through the ice, as happens at St. week.

The next publication (also in abbreviated form) was published in 1842 - in the "scientific and literary journal" "Moskvityanin". It was published by the editor-in-chief and the founder of the magazine - the famous Russian historian and publicist Mikhail Pogodin.

Only 110 years after it was written, having lost its relevance and significance, the letter was published in full in the St. Petersburg Historical Bulletin - "Russian Antiquity". From a historical point of view, it is of particular importance, because it demonstrates the true state of affairs in Russia in the 18th century. It is symbolic to this day, because, like 250 years ago, the problem with the "reproduction and preservation of the Russian people" remains unresolved.

We print Lomonosov's letter while maintaining the integrity of the author's spelling, since it would be a sin to change the characteristic features of Lomonosov's letter.

MIKHAIL VASILIEVICH LOMONOSOV

On the reproduction and preservation of the Russian people. 1761

Gracious sovereign Ivan Ivanovich.

1. On the reproduction and preservation of the Russian people.
2. About the extermination of idleness.
3. About the correction of morals and about the greater enlightenment of the people.
4. About the correction of agriculture.
5. On the correction and reproduction of handicrafts and arts.
6. About the best benefits of the merchant class.
7. About the best state economy.
8. On the preservation of military art during a long-term peace.

These only important chapters require deep reasoning, long-term art in state affairs for explanation and precautionary force for putting into action. And so, m. g., excuse my insolence that, not having the necessary ability for this, I only touch a heavy burden only out of zeal, which does not allow me to leave anything (even if only apparently) useful to society under a bushel. I consider the beginning of this to be the most important thing: the preservation and reproduction of the Russian people, in which lies the majesty, power and wealth of the entire state, and not in the vastness, futile without inhabitants. The divine work and merciful and philanthropic monarch of our meek heart is a worthy task - to save subjects from death, even though others were worthy according to the laws. This pardon is obvious and directly dependent on her maternal highest will and command. But there is much homicide and even suicide, a people that belittles, whom directly by decrees, without the correction or complete extermination of some customs, and some more, under the name of rooted laws, it is impossible to exterminate.

In my opinion, the groom's bride should not be older than only two years, and the groom older can be 15 years. This is because women age faster than men, and especially from frequent pregnancy. Women will give birth just after 45 years, and men are often capable of fertility even up to 60 years.

It seems to me that it would not be contrary to the laws if, in order to multiply the people and to avoid unlawful carnal mixtures, and from that unfortunate adventures, a fourth, and out of necessity, a fifth marriage was allowed, following the example of other Christian peoples.

Is it possible to think that a young person, living in monasticism without any sorrow, content with food and drink, and in all appearance healthy, strong and fat, would not be subject to carnal lusts, which are always the more intensified, the more strongly they are forbidden.

The foregoing referred more to the most abundant fertility of those giving birth; the following is especially necessary before the preservation of those born. Although the prohibition of unequal and forced matrimony, the permission of the fourth and fifth marriages, the permission to marry widowed priests and deacons, and the non-permission to accept the monastic rank until the indicated years, a noble increase in the people can undoubtedly follow and there will not be so many illegitimate children, therefore, there will be less child murder, however, according to various For reasons and due to the weakness of human constitution, it is impossible that a woman burdened with unallowed voluptuousness or violence, not wanting to be dishonored, would not look for ways to hide her lawlessness and misfortune, which is why sometimes, in despair, mothers of their children are killed.

This is followed by infantile illnesses, exhausting and plunging into the jaws of death the beginning of human life, of which the first and most severe torment is birth itself. The baby suffers no less than the mother, and their languor differs only in that the mother remembers it, the baby does not remember. How great it is, David the prophet expresses, for, although he portrays the terrible enemies of his sorrow, he says: “There is sickness as if giving birth” (that is, women). Passing a painful path into a sad and vain light, since often a tender person undergoes great damage, and especially in the head, by the fact that at the very birth he loses the barely begun life and the first drawn spirit in the last emits either several hours or days only with real death is fighting. This is the first suffering, by which the health of those born alive is often damaged for the whole life.

Nothing else can prevent this, or at least somewhat alleviate it, as with the art of midwives and the caution of pregnant women. Then follows a disease when the teeth come out, often fatal to infants, when it brings with it a particularly epilepsy disease. Also hernias, smallpox, dryness, worms in the stomach and other deaths of childhood causes, all require knowledge of how to treat tender body diseases.

To diminish only the great evil, I advise you to do the following:

4) Having printed this book in sufficient quantity, to sell it to the whole state in all churches, so that priests and literate people, reading, could know themselves and use others for guidance.

According to the calculation of the dead by parish, carried out in Paris, comparing their years, almost as many babies die in the first three years as in others, counting up to a hundred.

From freezing into ice, water takes in a cold of up to 130 degrees, and even here you can consider it hot, because freezing mercury has an incomparably greater distance from this degree than water from boiling water to freezing.

It is easy to judge that, in preparation for the abstention of Great Lent, in all of Russia many people are so full of shit that there is no time left for fasting. The dead in the taverns, along the streets and along the roads, and frequent burials clearly prove this.

Like dogs released from a leash, like accumulated water from an open dam, like whirlwinds breaking through from a cloud, they tear, break, knock down, refute, torment. There are scattered parts of various meats, broken parts, broken dishes, spilled drinks flow, there they lie unconsciously weighed down by gluttony and drunkenness, there lay naked and exhausted by fornication recent strict fasters. O true Christian fasting and feast! Is it not at such that God is indignant at the prophet: “My soul hates your holidays and your censer is an abomination before me!”.

It is an undeniable fact that the unequal course of life and the abruptly changing nutrition of the body is not only harmful to a person, but also deadly, so that the aforementioned strict fasters, moreover, zealous and zealous holiday-lovers, can be considered suicides.

It is true that if someone prepares for fasting at Shrovetide by a moderate life, he does not exhaust himself unnecessarily during fasting and fasts more with his spirit than with his belly, on St. during the week he rejoices in the passage of great fasting in true virtues, in works useful to society and kind to God, and not that he lived to see the resolution to everything, he, of course, will feel less seizures from unhealthy time, but especially when labor sets the blood in motion and , in a word, it contains itself, although sometimes with lean, sometimes with modest food, but equally moderate, without steep jumps and hillocks.

1-e) the movement of the body in the peasants by arable work would hasten to preserve health, in the merchants by long-distance travel on land and by sea, in the military - by exercise and campaigns;

And about your midnight side, we argued that not only there is not and will not be a Christian law, but below a single verbal inhabitant for the sake of a great cold. Don't complain about us! How could we order you to eat dates and figs and drink good grape wine according to krasoul, which will not be born among you? Arrange, as reasonable people, according to your climate, use another most capable time for fasting, or at a bad time eat moderately healthy foods. You have a clergy, equal to us in power from Christ, having to knit and decide. For such an important matter, an ecumenical council can be composed in Russia: the preservation of the life of only a great multitude of people is worth it.

And besides, by teaching, instill in everyone the idea that it is more pleasing to God when we have a clear conscience in our hearts than scurvy fish in our stomachs, that fasts are established not for suicide with harmful food, but for refraining from excess, that a deceiver, a robber, an unjust, a bribe taker , the thief and other images of his neighbor will not find forgiveness, even if he ate wood chips, brick, bast, clay and coal instead of ordinary fasting food for seven weeks and would stand on his head instead of prostrating for most of that time.

Pure repentance is a good life, bowing God to mercy, to generosity and to our love. Save the commandments given by Christ, on which all the law and the prophets hang: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart (that is, not with your guts) and your neighbor as yourself (i.e., with your conscience, and not with your tongue)."

There are terrible obstacles to correcting this deficiency, but no more dangerous than forcing them to shave their beards, wear a German dress, communicate courtesy with non-believers, force the sailors to eat meat during the summer fasts, destroy the boyars, the patriarchate and the archers and instead establish the Governing Senate, the Holy Synod, new regular army, move the capital to an empty place and the new year in another month! The Russian people are flexible!

True, there are many of them who really know how to treat certain diseases, and especially external ones, like horse-dressers and chiropractors, so that sometimes even learned surgeons are superior in some cases, but it’s better to establish medical science according to the rules. In addition, a sufficient number of doctors, healers and pharmacies are required throughout the cities, satisfied with medicines, even if they are decent in our climate, which is not only not even a hundredth part, but the Russian army is not very well equipped with doctors, so that doctors do not have time to bandage and the wounded, not only to examine everyone, ask about the circumstances, give medicines and thereby calm the suffering. From such disdain, many who would come to life die.

Nothing can fill this shortcoming as soon as possible, how to send a sufficient number of Russian students to foreign universities to study the doctorate, and to give universities established and continue to be established within the state, among other privileges, the power to produce worthy doctors; 2nd (the 1st paragraph is not in the manuscript). The medical office firmly confirms that both in pharmacies and with doctors there are a sufficient number of Russian students, whom they would teach their art at a certain time and represent to the Senate.

It is a shame and annoyance to hear that the students of the Russian people, having been in pharmacies for ten or more years, are not able to compose almost any medicines, but for what? Because the pharmacists still keep German apprentices, and the Russians, under the yoke, under the sieve, and under the coal, live to old age and die as apprentices, and the entire state cannot be filled with Germans. Moreover, insufficient knowledge of the language, the difference of faith, dissimilar customs and expensive wages hinder them a lot.

Deaths from disease are followed by violent, natural and accidental circumstances as the causes of the deprivation of human life, i.e. plagues, fires, drownings, frosts. Fables against people, although for the most part in the southern borders of the local state, occur, but all sorts of ways against it should be used. They consist in the destruction of what has already begun or in the aversion of what is coming.

The first requires certain means used against such a misfortune, and in order to choose the best from the authors, compose a book for the Faculty of Medicine and, having printed it, sell it around the state.

For the second, it is necessary to collect signs from former examples, of which the main one is an eclipse of the sun, which almost always causes a death to cattle, and then a plague on people.

In our enlightened ages, people who circulate from astronomers know about it in great light and can take precautions, not letting the cattle out of the house and not giving the grass that was taken off that day: so in other states they are wary of two or three days after and they themselves do not have any fruits at that time. they take it off and do not use it, saying that poisonous dews fall during a solar eclipse.

The main reason for it seems, in my opinion, that during an eclipse the sun is covered by the moon, the same body as our earth, the electrical force that the sun pours out on all plants all day long is cut short, which can be seen on the grasses that sleep at night and also suffering in a solar eclipse.

Time will teach how much the electric force can act in the reasoning of the fad. Eclipses are not known throughout the state, and for this it is necessary to publish in advance and what needs to be ordered by decrees, following the example, as is customary in other states.

To get rid of a fiery death, there is a precaution to extinguish frequent and great fires, about which it will seem at length in a letter on better state economy. The essence of drowning is twofold: from flooding and from careless insolence, especially in drunkenness.

The first can be easily averted by forbidding that along the great rivers in low places, especially subject to spring water, there should be no dwellings. This is done out of sheer laziness, so that water, and hay, and all convenience from water is close, but often in high places people see it in the spring, being themselves safe, like cattle, and people, and whole houses, impregnable ice carries in the despair of any salvation. .

The second sinkings cannot be averted by anything without detracting from a lot of visiting and drunkenness, for which people dare to cross rivers in stormy weather, overloading ships with a multitude, or to cross ice in autumn and spring, when it is very unreliable and dangerous. In the chapter on the destruction of idleness, methods will be proposed, as well as for delivering the freezing of many in winter.

Considerable damage is caused to the people by murders, which happen in fights and from robbers. There are harmful fights between neighbors, and especially between landlords, who cannot be extinguished by anything like land surveying. Although detectives are sent to the robbers, there is almost no hope to bring out this evil through it, or even significantly reduce it. Fundamental and strongest methods are required for this. The next one seems to me more reliable, more thrifty, and more glorious and more amiable to the most merciful monarch, because he will have his effect with less shedding of human blood.

Robbers without shelter in cities and near villages cannot stay and use their villainy for a long time. They stay near the villages, but in the cities they usually often come to sell plundered belongings. So, when these places are made narrow and cramped for them, they cannot be hidden for a long time; it will not be necessary to send commands far away and make bloody battles with many, when you can have the opportunity to sort out one by one and catch them often.

The long-awaited and long-term peace within our fatherland, after a hundred and fifty years, at some time after the devastation of the Poles it was not necessary to protect ourselves from enemies with walls, gave our negligence a reason to have little care for city fences, and therefore most of the small cities and towns and many provincial and provincial cities do not only have stone walls or even reliable ramparts and ditches, but also do not have wooden front gardens or fences, which I see, not without regret, from the answers sent to geographic questions to the Academy of Sciences from all cities by decree of the Governing Senate, in my opinion.

In addition to the fact that passing foreigners do not look without contempt at our disorderly cities, or, rather, almost at ruins, the robbers use them as their refuge and can also hide themselves from worthy punishment in the city or even better than in the countryside, because the city is larger and from all sides in it, in every place, the gates are constantly open day and night to thieves and good people. When would it be merciful to order all Russian cities, in which the fence collapsed or did not exist, to fortify, although not with stone walls, but only with a rampart and a moat and a high front garden and not in many places leave gates with strong locks and with reliable bourgeois guards where there are no garrisons, so that the ranks of the plavka were inside the fence, it would be very difficult for thieves to bring looted things into the city for sale, and it would be incomparably easier to use everything for precautionary inspection than in a place open on all sides; and a robber can be more likely to be noticed at the gate, who, without selling the looted things, will not receive self-interest.

In addition, in each fenced city, appoint permanent lodging for the night for passers-by and travelers with written permission and with a sign, and order that every day the owner announces in the town hall who was at his lodging for the night and how long, and the other philistines should take over in the house of visitors and passers-by they had no will, under fear of punishment, except for their relatives, who were famous in the city.

To publish in all volosts, churchyards and villages that if a peasant or two or more catch a robber, bring him to a city or other safe place and prove it with reliable witnesses and there will be no dispute about this, then give the drivers 10 rubles for each head. from the petty-bourgeois state tax and for the main villainous leaders, for the ataman, esaul, as well as for catching and arguing the one who holds the thieves' shelters, 30 rubles each.

This, although it seems to be enough, where the cities are not very far away, however, there are many places in Russia that are deaf, for 500 or more miles without cities, direct refuges for robbers and all kinds of fugitive and passportless people; An example is the wooded space near the Vetluga River, which, stretching for 700 miles from the top to the mouth, does not have a single city with it. There, from the Volga, a great number of barge haulers hide in winter, of which a considerable part are robbers. The peasants keep them all winter for half a person, and if he works, they feed him without pay, without asking for a passport. Cities should be founded and set up in such places, giving civil rights to noble villages to establish town halls and voivodeships and protecting them from robbers with reliable fortifications and precautions, as shown above.

This will serve not only for the general security and preservation of the Russian people, but also for the special glory of our most merciful autocrat, as the regenerator of the old and the co-builder of many new Russian cities.

Stopping talking about the loss of the Russian people by disease, misfortune and murder, we must mention the living dead. From the border places people leave for foreign states, and especially for Poland, and thus the Russian crown is deprived of subjects. It is true that by placing precautions at the Lithuanian border, however, it is impossible to completely lock up only a great well by force: it is better to act with meekness. Escapes are more from landlord burdens to peasants and from soldier's sets. So, it seems to me, it is better to ease the inhabitants of the border with Poland with taxes and remove soldier sets, placing them throughout the state. For the sake of a split, a lot of Russian people go to Vetka: can't the fugitives who are there be returned in the current military case? And henceforth, methods can serve, which will be presented for the correction of morals and for the greater enlightenment of the people.

The place of fugitives abroad can conveniently be filled with the reception of foreigners, if decent measures are used for this. The current unfortunate wartime in Europe is forcing not only single people, but also entire ruined families to leave their fatherland and look for places remote from military violence. The vast possession of our great monarch is able to accommodate entire nations in its safe bowels and satisfy all sorts of needs, which expect the only possible labor from people for their useful work. I can’t imagine the conditions by which foreigners can be attracted to settle in Russia, not knowing the rather allied and hostile circumstances between the belligerents and peaceful parties.

I would like to compose an approximate account, no matter how many of these 13 ways (and there are more) followed the preservation and growth of the subjects of Her Imperial Majesty. However, many circumstances and not a little time are required for the news; for that, with only one guess, I can reach a few that for each year the growth of the Russian people can rise more than before, up to half a million souls, and from revision to revision in 20 years - up to 10 million. In addition, I hope that these methods will not burden the people in any way, but will serve to the safety and tranquility of the people.

Finishing this, I hope that your Excellency will like something from my opinions that are friendly to society, and I ask for your uninterrupted health and for all the pleasure of the Almighty builder and ruler of all peoples and languages, who produced you on this day and poured you the blood of the son of the fatherland to to the work of useful deeds, and even more so to the patronage of the sciences and arts, to which I, as well as to you, from all sincerity, zealous, with due high reverence abide.

November 1 1761

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Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov. "On the Preservation and Reproduction of the Russian People"

In November of the outgoing year, the 300th anniversary of the birth of M.V. Lomonosov, the first Russian scientist of world importance, a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, a man of encyclopedic knowledge, versatile interests and abilities. Biography of M.V. Lomonosov is well known, published in many publications, we will not reproduce it on our pages. Today, Demoscope proposes to mark one more significant date associated with the name of M.V. Lomonosov and most directly related to demography. Being an educator, in the 1750s M.V. Lomonosov, dealing with the problems of Russia's development, began collecting materials for work on economic policy issues and exactly 250 years ago, in November 1761, he prepared a treatise - a letter to Count I.I. Shuvalov "On the preservation and reproduction of the Russian people". It was first published in part from a copy in 1819 and in full in 1873.

Attaching great importance to the study of population, Lomonosov in a treatise-letter, based on the characteristics of the demographic situation in Russia in the middle of the 18th century, substantiates the need to take measures that contribute to the growth of the population, since it “contains the majesty, power and wealth of the entire state, and not vastness, vain without inhabitants.

It is amazing how much the range of issues raised in Lomonosov's treatise coincides with the range of issues that occupy Russian demographers today, 250 years after it was written.

With a powerful journalistic style, the author of the treatise writes about marriage and fertility, without ceremony criticizing the established customs that reduce the "fertility of those who give birth." This is how he condemns, for example, the monastic vows of young women and men. “Monasticism in youth is nothing else than fornication and sodomy covered up with a black dress, causing significant damage to the reproduction of the human race, not to mention child murders, when the crime is covered up with atrocity. It seems to me that the klobuk should be banned for men under 50, and for women under 45.”

He castigates ignorance and morals, "superstition and gross stubbornness", leading to high mortality, highlighting infant mortality. “Such stubborn priests, who want to forcefully baptize with cold water, I consider executioners because after their births and christenings they want soon a funeral for their own selfishness. How many unhappy parents are there, who have given birth to 10 or 15 children, and not a single one is left alive? He also condemns, leading to high mortality, “intemperance and carelessness with established customs, especially in Russia that have taken root and have the appearance of some kind of holiness.” He ridicules unenlightened healing: “illiterate men and women heal at random, often combining natural methods, as far as they understand, with divination and whispering, and thus not only do not give any strength to their medicines, but also strengthen superstition in people, they bring the sick into fear with dull views and increase the disease, bringing them closer to death. Talking about too much violent deaths and the pernicious role of drunkenness.

Understanding the difficulties of eradicating many of the vices underlying the high mortality rate, Lomonosov is firmly convinced of the possibility of transformative activity aimed at "preserving the people" and refers to the experience of the tsar-transformer. “There are terrible obstacles to correcting this shortcoming, but no more dangerous than forcing them to shave their beards, wear a German dress, communicate courtesy with non-believers, force sailors to eat meat during summer posts, destroy the boyars, the patriarchate and archers, and instead establish the Governing Senate, His Holiness Synod, a new regular army, move the capital to an empty place and the new year to another month! The Russian people are flexible!”

Lomonosov does not forget about migration either, seeing at the same time both emigration (“people leave from border places to foreign states, and especially to Poland, and thereby loses subjects of the Russian crown”) and immigration (“the place of fugitives abroad can be conveniently filled with the reception of foreigners, if moreover decent measures will be taken).

No, Lomonosov's treatise has not yet lost its relevance and deserves to be re-read today.

Demoscope places in the heading "From the history of demographic thought" the full text of M.V. Lomonosova I.I. Shuvalov "On the preservation and reproduction of the Russian people". The text is given in accordance with the publication in the complete works of M.V. Lomonosov.

M.V. Lomonosov

On the preservation and reproduction of the Russian people

Gracious sovereign Ivan Ivanovich.

On the reproduction and preservation of the Russian people
About the destruction of idleness
On the correction of morals and on the greater enlightenment of the people
About the correction of agriculture
On the correction and reproduction of handicrafts and arts
About the best benefits of merchants
About the best state economy
On the preservation of military art during a long-term peace

These important chapters require deep reasoning, long-term art in state affairs for explanation and precautionary force for putting into action. And so, m. g., excuse my insolence that, not having the necessary ability for this, I only touch a heavy burden only out of zeal, which does not allow me to leave anything (even if only apparently) useful to society under a bushel. I consider the beginning of this to be the most important thing: the preservation and reproduction of the Russian people, in which lies the majesty, power and wealth of the entire state, and not in the vastness, futile without inhabitants. The divine work and merciful and philanthropic monarch of our meek heart is a worthy task - to save subjects from death, even though others were worthy according to the laws. This pardon is obvious and directly dependent on her maternal highest will and command. But there is much homicide and even suicide, a people that belittles, whom directly by decrees, without the correction or complete extermination of some customs, and some more, under the name of rooted laws, it is impossible to exterminate.

It has become a custom in many Russian borders, and especially in the villages, that little children, incapable of a marital position, are married to adult girls, and often a wife could be the mother of her husband in years. Bad circumstances follow this, controversial behavior by nature: tearful adventures and harmful murderous murders to the growth of the human race. The first summers after marriage are fruitless, therefore, such a marriage is not a marriage and, moreover, is harmful to the reproduction of the people, because such an adult woman, being an equal, could give birth to several children to society. A boy, prompted by a fervent adult wife, by strengthening himself before the time spoils and henceforth in his time will not be quite capable of childbearing, and when he reaches the age of man, the wife will soon leave those years in which she was more capable of childbearing. Although she, even in infancy, her husband can get knocked up in an unlawful way, however, fearing dishonor and reproach and beatings from her husband's parents, she can easily act on infanticide while still in her womb. There are enough such examples that, abhorring a small and stupid peasant, a wife recognizes another and, in order to marry him, poisons her husband or kills her in some other way, and after being convicted is put to death. And so, by these disturbances the unborn die, and the guilty and the innocent perish. The second inequality in marriage occurs when a man in old age marries a very young girl, which, although not so dangerous, is nevertheless harmful to the growth of the people, and although the lack of love may be filled with unallowed love, this hostility, suspicion, anxiety and litigation in the inheritance and great misfortunes are the cause. For this, the inequality of matrimony, which is harmful to the multiplication and preservation of the people, must be prohibited and included within moderate limits. In my opinion, the groom's bride should not be older than only two years, and the groom older can be 15 years. This is because women age faster than men, and especially from frequent pregnancy. Women will give birth just after 45 years, and men are often capable of fertility even up to 60 years. It is most similar if the husband of the wife is older from 7 to 10 years. Although in the villages they show the reasons that they marry small children for working women, however, everything is a wasteland, then if someone has a small family, but has a lot of arable land or livestock, then hire workers, take thirds or half-workers, or sell the excess to another.

An unequal marriage is much like a forced one, for where there is no love, fertility is also unreliable. Disagreements, disputes and fights harm the fetus conceived and are often the cause of an untimely and immature birth. For this, the crowning priests must firmly confirm that, having heard somewhere about an involuntary combination, they did not allow it and did not marry under fear of deprivation of the rank, the bride and groom would not only be asked for show when they were already brought to church for the wedding, but several before.

Although it is suddenly not allowed to have more than one wife in our law, however, the fourth after the third death is not ordered in our legalizations, except that a certain Armenopulus, a judge of Thessalonica, ordered privately, relying, as I hope, on the words of Nazianzus: “The first marriage is the law, the second is forgiveness, the third is transgression." But this is not approved by any conciliar laws, because he said this as an orator, as a preacher, and not as a legislator, and, despite the words of this great saint, the holy church blesses the third marriage, and the fourth prohibition came to us from Thessalonica, and not from ecumenical councils or monarchical and national laws. This habit greatly forbids the growth of the people. I saw many widowers from a third wife about 30 years of my age, and my father was a widow for the third time, although at 50 years old, but still in his full vigor and could still marry a fourth. It seems to me that it would not be contrary to the laws if, in order to multiply the people and to avoid unallowable carnal mixtures, and from that unfortunate adventures, a fourth, and out of need, a fifth marriage was allowed, following the example of other Christian peoples. It is true that sometimes it happens, not without doubt, whether everything happened naturally when someone becomes a widow in the third and, moreover, in a few years, and was there not some kind of hidden villainy? For this, a person demanding a fourth or fifth marriage must present as witnesses neighbors or, even better, relatives from the first marriages, that in these actions his actions were gentle and shameless, and who will have likely signs of infidelity or ferocity, and especially in two or in all three matrimony, those individuals are not allowed a fourth marriage.

It has become a custom that human nature is contrary to the laws laid down at the councils, I don’t remember), that widowed young priests and deacons are forcibly tonsured, which gives a reason for sin, and not for salvation, and a considerable branch is stopped from the growth of the people. Ridiculous carelessness! It is not allowed to perform clergy, marrying a second marriage legally, honestly and blessedly, but in the clergy a fornicator, an adulterer or even a sodomy to serve the liturgy and perform all sorts of secrets is given the will. Is it possible to think that a young person, living in monasticism without any sorrow, content with food and drink, and in all appearance healthy, strong and fat, would not be subject to carnal lusts, which are always the more intensified, the more strongly they are forbidden. For these reasons, it seems that young widowed priests and deacons should be allowed a second marriage and not be tonsured before the age of fifty, or, having removed the rank of the priesthood, allowed to be worldly ranks. This also includes the tonsure of young people directly into monks and nuns, which, although in modern times has diminished compared to the former, there are still many excesses, especially in Little Russia and at synodal schools. Looks, attire, courtesies, luxuries and other deeds everywhere show that monasticism in youth is nothing but fornication and sodomy covered with a black dress, causing significant damage to the reproduction of the human race, not to mention child murders, when crime is covered up with atrocity. It seems to me that it is necessary to ban klobuk for men under 50, and for women under 45.

The above referred more to the most abundant fertility of those giving birth; the following is especially necessary before the preservation of those born. Although the prohibition of unequal and forced matrimony, the permission of the fourth and fifth marriages, the permission to marry widowed priests and deacons, and the non-permission to accept the monastic rank until the indicated years, a noble increase in the people can undoubtedly follow and there will not be so many illegitimate children, therefore, there will be less child murder, however, according to various Due to chances and the weakness of human constitution, it is impossible that a woman burdened by unallowed voluptuousness or violence, not wanting to be dishonored, would not look for ways to hide her lawlessness and misfortune, which is why mothers sometimes kill their children in despair. To avoid such a terrible villainy and to save the lives of innocent babies, it would be necessary to establish special almshouses for unrestricted shameful children at the reception, where almshouse old women could go after them instead of mothers or grandmothers; but about this especially, in a letter on the correction and reproduction of handicrafts and arts.

Infantile illnesses follow this, exhausting and plunging into the jaws of death the beginning of human life, of which the first and most severe torment is birth itself. The baby suffers no less than the mother, and their languor differs only in that the mother remembers it, the baby does not remember. How great it is, David the prophet expresses, for, although he portrays the terrible enemies of his sorrow, he says: “There is sickness as if giving birth” (that is, women). Passing a painful path into a sad and vain light, since often a gentle person undergoes great damage, and especially in the head, by the fact that at his very birth he loses a barely begun life and the first drawn spirit emits in the last, either for several hours or days only with the present fights death. This is the first suffering, by which the health of those born alive is often damaged for the whole life. Nothing else can prevent this, or at least somewhat alleviate it, as with the art of midwives and the caution of pregnant women. Then follows a disease when the teeth come out, often fatal to infants, when it brings with it a particularly epilepsy disease. Also hernia, smallpox, dryness, worms in the stomach and other deaths of childhood causes, all require knowledge of how to treat tender body diseases. To diminish this great evil, I advise you to put into action the following: 1) Choose good books about midwifery and, putting the best as a basis, compose an instruction in Russian or, having written in another, translate into Russian, to which it is necessary to add good methods of Russian skilled midwives; for this, having called together the elected, who know the business with a long-term art, ask each one in particular and everyone in general, and, what will be accepted for good, enter into this little book. 2) For the cure of other childhood diseases, laying as a basis the great physician Hoffmann, who, having practiced in 60 years in the doctorate, at the end of his life wrote instructions on the cure of infantile diseases, according to which I saved my daughter from death twice, and adding from others the best, to combine with the aforementioned book on midwifery; moreover, do not forget that our grandmothers and doctors use it with benefit in general. 3) In both of these arts combined in one book, to observe that for the most part it was not difficult to find methods and medicines everywhere in Russia, because we have so few pharmacies that not only in every city, but also in noble great cities are still not arranged, which should have long been taken care of; but this will be especially presented. 4) Having printed this book in sufficient quantity, to sell it to the whole state in all churches, so that priests and literate people reading could know themselves and use others for guidance. According to the calculation of the dead by parish, carried out in Paris, comparing their years, almost as many babies die in the first three years as in others, counting up to a hundred. So, let us suppose that in Russia there are 12 million males, of which one million are in such a marriage that children are born, putting in total, one in two years. Therefore, every year there will be half a million born, of whom half die in three years, or even more due to local negligence, so that every year there will be a hundred thousand babies not more than three years old. Is it not worth our labor and care, so that at least a tenth, that is, 10 thousand, can be preserved in life in convenient ways?

Hitherto about natural circumstances, harmful to babies; it remains to mention the damage, from superstition and gross stubbornness occurring. Priests, not only rural, but also urban, baptize babies in the winter in the coldest water, sometimes with ice, pointing to the prescription in the breviary that the water be natural without admixture, and they attribute warmth to the admixed matter, and do not think that in summer they themselves baptize with warm water, in their opinion mixed. So, they contradict themselves, and especially, due to their thoughtlessness, they do not know that even in the coldest water there is still a lot of warmth. From freezing into ice, water takes in a cold of up to 130 degrees, and even here you can consider it hot, because freezing mercury has an incomparably greater distance from this degree than water from boiling water to freezing. However, there is no need for ignorant priests to interpret physics, it is enough to force them by the authorities to always baptize with water, equal to summer warmth in reasoning, because the cold is certainly harmful to a baby who has recently come out of a warm mother's womb, and especially who has undergone a lot in birth. One immersion in temperate water is not without burden to the infant, when phlegm enters the eyes, ears, nostrils, and sometimes even into the mouth (and when the mouth and nostrils are blocked by the hand, then breathing is stopped, which the infant has only recently received). When cold water with ice engulfs the limbs, signs of an epilepsy are often visible, and although he will get rid of the font alive, however, in the following diseases, which every baby must overcome afterward, and especially when the first teeth come out, this deadly disease will more conveniently resume. Such stubborn priests, who want to forcefully baptize with cold water, I consider executioners, because they want after their births and christenings soon and a funeral for their own self-interest. How many unfortunate parents are there, who gave birth to up to 10 and 15 children, and not a single one remained alive?

malnourished, is suddenly compelled to take fat and strong brashn into shrinking and weakened passages and, not having the required contentment of vital juices, sends undigested food through the veins, they spiral, the flow of blood is stopped, and the soul directly flies out of the crampedness of the body into the heavenly doors that were opened then. To be sure about this, you can consult church records: around what time in the whole year do priests get more honey for kutya? It is an undeniable fact that the unequal course of life and the abruptly changing nutrition of the body is not only harmful to a person, but also deadly, so that the aforementioned strict fasters, moreover, zealous and zealous holiday-lovers, can be considered suicides. It is true that if someone prepares for fasting at Shrovetide by a moderate life, he does not exhaust himself unnecessarily during fasting and fasts more with his spirit than with his belly, on St. during the week he rejoices at the passage to [great] fasting in true virtues, in works useful to society and dear to God, and not that he lived to see the resolution of everything, he will certainly feel less seizures from unhealthy time, and especially when labor sets the blood in motion and, in a word, he maintains himself with either lenten or modest food, but equally moderate, without steep jumps and hillocks. But here, in the north, this time is fat at the ends, and in the middle the dry time is the most idle part of the year, when the peasants do not have any big work and only the sown, reaped, ground and ground fruits of the field eat up; merchants, behind spoiled roads and mudslides, have almost no travel from city to city with goods; there is no contented movement for sailing ships and sea people; military people are on campaigns in winter quarters, and at home, sometimes for frost, sometimes for slush, exercises cannot be convenient. So, the majority of the people should remain in idleness, which, in contemplation and breaking the fast, gives rise to unbridled luxury, and in fasting, combined with last year’s bad food and unhealthy air, spoils health and shortens life.

Many will say: “Yes, people live! Our fathers and great-grandfathers lived for many centuries! True, the Lapps also live, eating almost nothing but fish, but look how large they are in body and how crowded, and compare them with the Samoyeds living in the same climate, eating mostly meat. The first are small in stature, few people, so that at 700 versts in length and 300 Lapps in width there is only little that even in large soldier's requisitions from all over the earth, two soldiers from the number of souls are hired from our people, then which of them is very rare, so that someone at least fit into a soldier. Samoyeds, on the contrary, are not small, broad-shouldered and strong, and in such a multitude that if internecine frequent bloody battles between many of their princelings did not happen, then the noble part of the east-north coast would be populated by them crowdedly. See that those Russian regions are more populous, where there is more abundance of livestock, then that in many places where livestock is scarce, and in the meat-eater, for the most part, they eat fish or empty cabbage soup with bread. If our Maslenitsa had been laid in the month of May, then Great Lent would have been in full spring and early summer, and St. a week around Peter's Day, then, in addition to new fruits of the earth and fresh fish and favorable air, 1st) the movement of the body in the peasants by arable work, in the merchants by long-distance travel by land and by sea, by the military - by exercise and campaigns; 2-e) for the sake of correcting such necessary work, there would be less idleness, a mother of intemperance, less guests and feasts, less drunkenness, unequal living and intermittent meals that tear human health, and moreover, even if someone got drunk, however, returning home, I wouldn’t freeze on the road, as happens at Shrove Tuesday, and I wouldn’t fall through the ice, as happens at St. week.

I turn to you, great teachers and organizers of fasts and holidays, and with all reverence I ask your holiness: what did you think of us at that time, when St. great post set at this time? It seems to me that you, in your holiness, meekness, patience and sincerity, will give a gracious answer, and not in the same way as Archpriest Yakov of Andreev did, you will not choose obscenely in the church, or else, as he and sea captain Yankov on Easter Sunday at the cross for not kissing the hand acted, do not hit your chest with your fist. You will say: “Disposing fasts and holidays, we lived in Greece and in the promised land. Then they set up the holy fortecost, when with us, with the full radiance of the spring sun, the rich bowels of the earth open, grow healthy juices filled with young greens and renew the air with fragrant perfumes; early fruits ripen, serving as food, cooling and medicine; Our singing for the praise of God was matched by murmuring streams, rustling leaves, and singing sweet-voiced birds. And about your midnight side, we argued that not only there is not and will not be a Christian law, but below a single verbal inhabitant for the sake of a great cold. Don't complain about us! How would we prescribe for you to eat dates and figs and drink good grape wine according to krasoul e, which you will not be born Arrange, as reasonable people, according to your climate, use another most capable time for fasting, or in a bad time use moderately healthy foods. You have a clergy, equal to us in power from Christ, having to knit and decide. For such an important matter, an ecumenical council can be composed in Russia: the preservation of the life of only a great multitude of people is worth it. And besides, by teaching, instill in everyone the idea that it is more pleasing to God when we have a clear conscience in our hearts than scurvy fish in our stomachs, that fasts are established not for suicide with harmful food, but for refraining from excess, that a deceiver, a robber, an unjust, a bribe taker , the thief and other images of his neighbor will not find forgiveness, even if he ate wood chips, brick, bast, clay and coal instead of ordinary fasting food for seven weeks and would stand on his head instead of prostrating for most of that time. Pure repentance is a good life, bowing God to mercy, to generosity and to our love. Preserve the commandments given by Christ, on which all the law and the prophets hang: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart (not with intestines) and your neighbor as yourself, etc. e. conscience, not language). There are terrible obstacles to correcting this deficiency, but no more dangerous than forcing them to shave their beards, wear a German dress, communicate courtesy with non-believers, force the sailors to eat meat during the summer fasts, destroy the boyars, the patriarchate and the archers and instead establish the Governing Senate, the Holy Synod, new regular army, move the capital to an empty place and the new year in another month! The Russian people are flexible!

In addition, a great many people also fall into various other diseases, for the cure of which there are still very few decent institutions, as mentioned above, and only mostly simple, illiterate men and women are treated at random, often combining natural methods, as much as they understand, with divination. and whisperings, and thus not only do not give any strength to their medicines, but they also strengthen superstition in people, they bring fear to the sick with dull looks and increase the disease, bringing them closer to death. True, there are many of them who really know how to treat certain diseases, and especially external ones, like horse-dressers and chiropractors, so that sometimes even learned surgeons in some cases are superior, but it’s better to establish medical science according to the rules. To this, a sufficient number of doctors, healers and pharmacies are required in all cities, satisfied with medicines, although only decent in our climate, which is not only not even a hundredth part, but the Russian army is not quite well equipped with doctors, so that doctors do not have time to bandage and the wounded, not only to examine everyone, ask about the circumstances, give medicines and thereby calm the suffering. From such disdain, many who would come to life die. Nothing can quickly fill this deficiency, how to send a sufficient number of Russian students to foreign universities to study the doctorate, and to give universities established and continue to be established within the state, among other privileges, the power to produce worthy doctors; 2nd. The medical office firmly confirms that both in pharmacies and with doctors there should be a sufficient number of Russian students, whom they would teach their art at a certain time and represent to the Senate. It is a shame and annoyance to hear that the students of the Russian people, having been in pharmacies for ten or more years, are not able to compose almost any medicines, but for what? Then, that pharmacists still keep German students, and Russians with a yoke, with a sieve and with coal live to old age and die as students, and the whole state cannot be filled with Germans. Moreover, insufficient knowledge of the language, the difference of faith, dissimilar customs and expensive wages hinder them a lot.

Deaths from disease are followed by violent, natural and accidental circumstances as the causes of the deprivation of human life, i.e. plagues, fires, drownings, frosts. Whilst in the southern borders of the local state, fads against people happen for the most part, but all sorts of ways against it should be used. They consist in the destruction of what has already begun or in the aversion of what is coming. The first one requires certain means to be used against such a misfortune, and in order to do this, the best ones should be selected from the authors, compose a book for the Faculty of Medicine and print it and sell it around the state. For the second, it is necessary to collect signs from former examples, of which the main one is an eclipse of the sun, which almost always causes a death to cattle, and then a plague on people. In our enlightened ages, people who circulate from astronomers know about this in great light and can take precautions, not letting the cattle out of the house and not giving the grass that day was cut: so in other states they are wary of two or three days after, and themselves no fruits at that time. they do not remove and do not use, saying that poisonous dews fall during a solar eclipse. The main reason for it seems, in my opinion, that during an eclipse the sun is covered by the moon, the same body as our earth, the electrical force that the sun pours out on all plants all day long is cut short, which can be seen on the grasses that sleep at night and also suffering in a solar eclipse. Time will teach how much the electric force can act in the reasoning of the fad. Eclipses are not known in the whole state, and for this it is necessary to publish in advance and what needs to be ordered by decrees, following the example, as is customary in other states. To get rid of a fiery death, there is a precaution to extinguish frequent and great fires, about which it will seem at length in a letter on the best state economy. The essence of drowning is twofold: from flooding and from careless insolence, especially in drunkenness. The first can be easily averted by forbidding that along the great rivers in low places, especially subject to spring water, there should be no dwellings. This is done out of sheer laziness, so that water and hay and all conveniences from water are close, but often in high places those who live see in the spring, being themselves safe, like cattle and people and whole houses impregnable ice carries in the despair of any salvation. The second sinkings cannot be averted by anything without detracting from a lot of visiting and drunkenness, for which people dare to cross rivers in stormy weather, overloading ships with a multitude, or to cross ice in autumn and spring, when it is very unreliable and dangerous. In the chapter on the extermination of idleness, methods will be proposed, as well as for delivering the freezing of many in winter.

Considerable damage is caused to the people by murders, which happen in fights and from robbers. There are harmful fights between neighbors, and especially between landowners, who cannot be extinguished by anything like land surveying. Although detectives are sent to the robbers, there is almost no hope to bring out this evil through it, or even significantly reduce it. Fundamental and strongest methods are required for this. The next one seems to me more reliable, more thrifty, and the most merciful monarch is more glorious and, moreover, more amiable, because he will have his effect with less shedding of human blood. Robbers cannot stay without shelter in cities and near villages and cannot use their villainy for a long time. They stay near the villages, but in the cities they usually often come to sell plundered belongings. So, when these places are made narrow and cramped for them, they cannot be hidden for a long time; it will not be necessary to send commands far away and make bloody battles with many, when you can have the opportunity to sort out one by one and catch them often. The long-awaited and long-term peace within our fatherland, after a hundred and fifty years, at some time after the devastation of the Poles it was not necessary to protect ourselves from enemies with walls, gave our negligence a reason to have little care for city fences, and therefore most of the small cities and towns and many provincial and provincial cities do not only have stone walls or even reliable ramparts and ditches, but they also do not have wooden front gardens or fences, which I see, not without regret, from the answers sent to geographic questions to the Academy of Sciences from all cities by decree of the Governing Senate, in my opinion. In addition to the fact that passing foreigners do not look without contempt at our disorderly cities, or, rather, almost at ruins, the robbers use them as their refuge and can also hide themselves from worthy punishment in the city or even better than in the countryside, because the city is larger and from all sides in it, in every place, the gates are constantly open day and night to thieves and good people. When would it be merciful to order all Russian cities, in which the fence collapsed or did not exist, to fortify, although not with stone walls, but only with a rampart and a moat and a high front garden and not in many places leave gates with strong locks and with reliable bourgeois guards where there are no garrisons, so that the rows and shops are inside the fence, it would be very difficult for thieves to bring looted things into the city for sale, and it would be incomparably easier to use everything for precautionary inspection than in a place open on all sides; and a robber can be more likely to be noticed at the gate, who, without selling the looted things, will not receive self-interest. In addition, in each fenced city, appoint permanent lodging for the night for passers-by and travelers with written permission and with a sign, and order that every day the owner announces in the town hall who was at his lodging for the night and how long, and the other philistines should take over in the house of visitors and passers-by they had no will, under fear of punishment, except for their relatives, who were famous in the city. To publish in all volosts, graveyards and villages that if a peasant or two or more catch a robber, bring him to a city or other safe place and prove it by reliable witnesses and there will be no dispute about this, then give the drivers 10 rubles for each head. from the petty-bourgeois state tax, and for the main villainous leaders, for the ataman, esaul, as well as for catching and arguing the one who holds the thieves' shelters, 30 rubles each. Although this seems to be enough, where the cities are not very far away, however, there are many places in Russia that are deaf, for 500 or more miles without cities, direct shelters for robbers and all kinds of fugitive and passportless people; An example is the wooded space near the Vetluga River, which, stretching for 700 miles from the top to the mouth, does not have a single city with it. There, from the Volga, a great number of barge haulers hide in winter, of which a considerable part are robbers. The peasants keep them all winter for half a person, and if he works, they feed him without pay, without asking for a passport. Cities should be founded and set up in such places, giving civil rights to noble villages to establish town halls and voivodeships and protecting them from robbers with reliable fortifications and precautions, as shown above. This will serve not only for the general security and preservation of the Russian people, but also for the special glory of our most merciful autocrat, as the regenerator of the old and the co-builder of many new Russian cities.

Stopping talking about the loss of the Russian people by disease, misfortune and murder, we must mention the living dead. From the border places people leave for foreign states, and especially for Poland, and thus the Russian crown is deprived of subjects. It is true that by placing precautions at the Lithuanian border, however, it is impossible to completely lock up only a great well by force: it is better to act with meekness. Shoots are more from the burdens of the landowners to the peasants and from the soldiers' sets. So, it seems to me that it is better for the inhabitants of the border with Poland to lighten the taxes and remove the soldier's kits, placing them throughout the state. For the sake of a split, a lot of Russian people go to Vetka: can't the fugitives who are there be returned in the current military case? And henceforth, methods can serve, which will be presented for the correction of morals and for the greater enlightenment of the people.

I would like to compose an approximate account, no matter how many of these 13 ways (and there are more) followed the preservation and growth of the subjects of Her Imperial Majesty. However, many circumstances and not a little time are required for the news; for that, with only one guess, I can reach a few that for each year the growth of the Russian people can rise more than before, up to half a million souls, and from revision to revision in 20 years - up to 10 million. In addition, I hope that these methods will not burden the people in any way, but will serve to the safety and tranquility of the people.

Finishing this, I hope that your Excellency will like something from my opinions that are friendly to society, and I ask for your uninterrupted health and for all the pleasure of the Almighty builder and ruler of all peoples and languages, who produced you on this day and poured you the blood of the son of the fatherland to to the work of useful deeds, and even more to the patronage of the sciences and arts, to which I, as well as to you, from all sincerity, zealous, with due high reverence abide.

November 1 1761

Journal of Ancient and Modern Literature, 1819, part 5, March, No. 6, pp. 52-78.
Conversations in the Society of Lovers Russian literature at Moscow University, M., 1871, pp. 72-86; Russian Antiquity, 1873, vol. 8, pp. 565-580.
Lomonosov M.V. Complete Works / USSR Academy of Sciences. - M.; L., 1950-1983 V.6. S. 384.
Lomonosov M.V. On the preservation and reproduction of the Russian people //Lomonosov M.V. Complete works. T. 6: Works on Russian history, socio-economic issues and geography. 1747-1765 Moscow - L. Academy of Sciences of the USSR. 1952, pp. 381-403.
sell the surplus to another - these economic considerations of Lomonosov show that he does not mean landlords, but "free" state peasants
words of Nazianzus - Gregory of Nazianzus, church writer of the 4th century, canonized by the Orthodox Church
to establish purpose almshouses for ... shameful children - according to Lomonosov, the upbringing of illegitimate children should have been combined with teaching them various specialties. The first educational home in Russia, founded in Moscow in 1764 according to the project of I. I. Betsky, had little in common with Lomonosov's idea.
Hoffmann ... instruction on the cure of infantile diseases - meaning Fr. hoffmann. Opera omnia physico-medica (Collection medical essays), published in Geneva in 1740, in 6 volumes.
takes water into itself with a cold of up to 130 gr. - we are talking about the release of latent heat by water; the essence of the method of measuring this heat, used by Lomonosov, has not been studied to this day.
freezing mercury - the freezing of mercury, previously considered a non-freezing liquid, was first experimentally proven in December 1759 by the experiments of I.-A. Brown, Lomonosov and other Petersburg academicians. See about this "Discourse on the hardness and fluidity of bodies" in vol. III of this edition.
the Lapps also live, eating almost only fish - for considerations on the dependence of the weakness of the Lapps on their nutrition, see also the remarks on Voltaire's History of the Russian Empire under Peter the Great
Andreevsky Archpriest Yakov - i.e. St. Andrew's Church on Vasilyevsky Island in St. Petersburg
according to krasoulya - krasoulya - a bowl used at a monastery meal
Medical office - she was in charge of the medical business in Russia (established in 1721) until November 1763, when the urgent need of the state for doctors, so vividly described by Lomonosov, led to the creation of the Medical College; the task of the Collegium was not only to manage hospitals and pharmacies, but also to expand the medical staff, which Lomonosov also called for
with a yoke - yoke - mortar
Faculty of Medicine - Moscow University, opened in 1755
in a letter about the best state economy - a reference to one of the chapters of the work conceived by Lomonosov indicated at the beginning
In the chapter on the extermination of idleness - a reference to one of the chapters listed by Lomonosov, which also includes notes in work 12 of this volume
Fights ... which cannot be extinguished by anything like land surveying - this reflects the clash of Lomonosov himself with his neighbors on the ground, as a result of which Lomonosov on August 31, 1761 asked the Main Land Survey Office to dissociate the lands of the village of Golubovitsy, inhabited by those assigned to his Ust-Ruditskaya factory by peasants, from the lands of the gene. V. Skvortsova (see: Review of Lomonosov's manuscripts in the Central State Archive of Ancient Acts, compiled by E. V. Alexandrova, No. 66. Lomonosov, III, M. - L., 1951, p. 388)
after the ruin from the Poles - we mean the events of the period of the Swedish-Polish intervention of 1611-1612.
answers sent to geographic questions ... in my opinion - in the questionnaire sent out on the initiative of Lomonosov by the Academy of Sciences in 1759 through the Senate in order to collect information needed for the geographical atlas of Russia, there was a question: “1. The city is fenced with something, a stone wall or a wooden one, or an earthen rampart and ditches "(see: V. F. Gnucheva. Lomonosov and the Geographical Department of the Academy of Sciences. Lomonosov, [I], p. 257)
Escapes are more from landlord burdens to peasants and from soldier sets - this reflects the intensification of the struggle of the serfs against the landowners, which intensified in the 50s of the XVIII century
in the current military case - Lomonosov is talking here about the possibility, during the passage of Russian troops after the Prussian campaign through Belarus, the forced return of schismatics from their settlements on the river. Vetka. This measure, probably, was what he had in mind in the topic "The extermination of the schism"
ways, which will be presented about the correction of morals and about the greater enlightenment of the people - a reference to one of the chapters listed by Lomonosov. Referring to this chapter the struggle with the split gives

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Letter from M. V. Lomonosov to Count I. I. Shuvalov "On the Preservation and Reproduction of the Russian People"

Dear sir, Ivan Ivanovich!

Analyzing my writings, I found old notes of my thoughts, extending to the increment of the common benefit. After consideration, I decided for the benefit of more extensively and more thoroughly to communicate them to Your Excellency, as a true zealot about every good of the dear fatherland, in the hope that, perhaps, there will be something in them that will serve for the real correction of the Russian world, which will serve as your insight and carefully dismantled, located and can be brought to true execution. All these thoughts, noticed separately at different times, can, as it seems to me, be summed up under the following chapters:

1) On the reproduction and preservation of the Russian people;

2) About the extermination of idleness;

3) About the correction of morals and about the greater enlightenment of the people;

4) On the improvement of agriculture;

5) On the correction and reproduction of handicrafts and arts;

6) About the best benefits of the merchants;

7) About the best state economy;

8) On the preservation of military art during a long-term peace.

These only important chapters require deep reasoning, long-term art in state affairs for explanation and precautionary force for putting into action.

So, gracious sir, forgive my impudence that, not having the necessary ability for this, I only touch a heavy burden only out of zeal, which does not allow me to leave anything (even if only apparently) useful to society under a bushel. I consider the beginning of this to be the most important thing: the preservation and reproduction of the Russian people, in which lies the majesty, power and wealth of the entire state, and not in the vastness, futile without inhabitants. It is a worthy task for our merciful and philanthropic monarchess of a meek heart to deliver subjects from death, even though others were worthy according to the laws [of it]. This pardon is obvious and directly dependent on her motherly supreme will and command. But there is much homicide and even suicide, a people that belittles, whom directly by decrees, without the correction or complete extermination of some customs, and some more, under the name of rooted laws, it is impossible to exterminate.

1) It has become a custom in many Russian borders, and especially in the villages, that little children who are incapable of marriage are married to adult girls, and often a wife could be the mother of her husband in years. This controversial behavior is followed by bad circumstances: tearful adventures and harmful murderous murders to the growth of the human race. The first summers after marriage are fruitless, therefore, such a marriage is not a marriage, and, moreover, it is harmful to the reproduction of the people, because such an adult woman, being an equal, could give birth to several children to society. A boy, prompted by a provocative adult wife, by strengthening himself spoils himself ahead of time and henceforth in his time will not be quite capable of childbearing, and when he reaches the age of man, the wife will soon leave those years in which she was more capable of childbearing. Although even in her early childhood she can be knocked up in an unlawful way, however, fearing disgrace and reproach and beatings from her husband's parents, she can easily act on infanticide while still in her womb. There are enough such examples that, abhorring a small and stupid peasant, a wife recognizes another and, in order to marry him, poisons her husband or kills her in some other way, and then, exposed, is put to death. And so, by these disturbances the unborn die, and the guilty and the innocent perish. The second inequality in marriage occurs when a man in old age marries a very young girl, which, although not so dangerous, is nevertheless harmful to the growth of the people; and although a lack can be filled with unallowed love, yet this unfriendliness, suspicion, anxiety and litigation in the inheritance and great misfortunes can be the cause. For this, the inequality of matrimony, which is harmful to the multiplication and preservation of the people, must be prohibited and included within moderate limits. In my opinion, the bridegroom's bride should not be older than two years; and the older groom may be 15 years old. This is because women age faster than men, and especially from frequent pregnancy. Women will give birth just after 45 years, and men are often capable of fertility even up to 60 years. It is most similar if the husband of the wife is older from 7 to 10 years. Although in the villages they show the reasons that they marry small children for working women, however, everything is a wasteland, because if someone has a small family, but has a lot of arable land or livestock, then hire workers, take thirds or half-workers, or sell the excess to another.

2) An unequal marriage is much like a weak one, for where there is no love, fertility is also unreliable. Disagreements, disputes and fights harm the fetus conceived and are often the cause of an untimely and immature birth. For this, the crowning priests must firmly confirm that they, having heard somewhere about an involuntary combination, do not allow it and do not marry under fear of deprivation of the rank. The bride and groom would not only be asked for show when they were already brought to church for the wedding, but a little earlier.

3) Although it is not allowed to have more than one wife in our law, however, the fourth, after the third death, is not ordered in our legalizations, except that a certain Armenopulus, a judge of Thessalonica, ordered privately, relying, as I hope, on the words of Nazianzus: “ The first marriage is law, the second is forgiveness, the third is lawlessness. But this is not approved by any conciliar laws, because he said this as an orator, as a preacher, and not as a legislator; and regardless of the words of this great hierarch, the holy church blesses the third marriage, and the fourth prohibition came to us from Thessalonica, and not from ecumenical councils or monarchical and national laws. This habit greatly forbids the growth of the people. I saw many widowers from a third wife about 30 years of my age, and my father was a widow for the third time, although 50 years old, but still in his full vigor and could still marry a fourth. It seems to me that it would not be contrary to the laws if, in order to multiply the people and to avoid unallowable carnal mixtures, and from that unfortunate adventures, the fourth, and out of need, the fifth marriage were allowed, following the example of other Christian peoples. It is true that sometimes it happens, not without doubt, whether everything happened naturally when someone becomes a widow in the third, and moreover, in a few years, and was there not some kind of hidden villainy? For this, a person demanding a fourth or fifth marriage must present as witnesses neighbors or, even better, relatives from the first marriages, that in these actions his actions were gentle and shameless; and whoever has probable signs of infidelity or ferocity, and especially in two or all three marriages, those persons should not allow a fourth marriage.

4) It has become a custom that it is contrary to human nature (I don’t remember whether it is contrary to the laws, laid down at councils), that widowed young priests and deacons are forcibly tonsured, which gives a reason for sin, and not for salvation, and a considerable branch is suppressed for the growth of the people . Ridiculous carelessness! It is not allowed to perform clergy, marrying a second marriage legally, honestly and blessedly, but in the clergy, a fornicator, an adulterer, or even a sodomy, to serve the liturgy and perform all sorts of secrets, is given the will. Is it possible to think that a young person, living in monasticism, without any sorrow, content with food and drink, and in all appearance healthy, strong and fat, would not be subject to carnal lusts, which are always the more intensified, the more strongly they are forbidden? For these reasons, it seems that young widowed priests and deacons should be allowed a second marriage and not be tonsured before the age of fifty, or, having removed the rank of the priesthood, allowed to be worldly ranks. This also includes the tonsure of young people directly into monks and nuns, which, although in modern times has diminished compared to the former, there are still many excesses, especially in Little Russia and at synodal schools. Looks, attire, courtesies, luxuries and other deeds everywhere show that monasticism in youth is nothing but fornication and sodomy covered with a black dress, causing significant damage to the reproduction of the human race, not to mention child murders, when the crime is covered up with atrocity. It seems to me that it is necessary to ban klobuk for men under 50, and for women under 45.

5) The foregoing referred more to the most abundant fertility of those who gave birth, the following applies especially to the preservation of those born. Although the prohibition of unequal and forced matrimony, the permission of the fourth and fifth marriages, the permission to marry widowed priests and deacons, and the prohibition of accepting the monastic rank until the indicated years, undoubtedly, a noble increase in the people can follow and there will not be so many lawless children, therefore, there will be fewer child murder; however, due to various cases and due to the weakness of human constitution, it is impossible that a woman burdened with unallowed voluptuousness or violence, not wanting to be dishonored, would not look for ways to hide her lawlessness and misfortune, which is why mothers sometimes kill their children in despair. To avoid such a terrible villainy and to save the lives of innocent babies, it would be necessary to establish special almshouses for unrestricted shameful children at the reception, where almshouse old women could go after them instead of mothers or grandmothers; but about this especially, in a letter on the correction and reproduction of handicrafts and arts [I intend to propose].

6) Infantile illnesses follow this, exhausting and plunging into the jaws of death the beginning of human life, of which the first and most severe torment is birth itself. The baby suffers no less than the mother, and their languor differs only in that the mother remembers it, the baby does not remember. How great it is, David the prophet expresses, for, although he portrays the terrible enemies of his sorrows, he says: there are diseases that give birth (that is, women). Passing a painful path into a sad and vain light, since often a gentle person undergoes great damage, and especially in the head, by the fact that at his very birth he loses a barely begun life and the first drawn spirit in the last emits, either for several hours or days only with real death is fighting. This is the first suffering, by which the health of those born alive is often damaged for the whole life. Nothing else can prevent this, or at least somewhat alleviate it, like the art of midwives and the caution of pregnant women. Then follows a disease when the teeth come out, often fatal to infants, when it brings with it a particularly epilepsy disease. Also hernias, smallpox, dryness, worms in the stomach, and other deaths of childhood causes all require knowledge of how to treat those gentle ailments. In order to diminish only the great evil, I advise you to do the following: 1) choose good books about midwifery and, putting the best as a basis, compose an instruction in Russian or, having written in another, translate into Russian, to which it is necessary to add good methods of Russian skilled midwives; for this, having called together the elected, by long-term art knowing the business, ask each one especially and everyone in general, and, what will be accepted for good, enter into this little book. 2) For the cure of other childhood diseases, laying the foundation for the great physician Hoffmann, who, having practiced in 60 years in the doctorate, at the end of his life wrote instructions on the cure of infantile diseases, according to which I saved my daughter from death twice, and, adding from others the best, to combine with the aforementioned book on the midwifery art, moreover, do not forget that our grandmothers and healers generally use it with benefit. 3) In both these arts combined in one book, to observe that for the most part it was not difficult to find methods and medicines everywhere in Russia, because we have so few pharmacies that not only in every city, but even in noble great cities there are still no arranged, which should have been taken care of long ago. But this will be especially presented. 4) Having printed this book in sufficient quantity, to sell it to the whole state, to all churches, so that priests and literate people, reading, could know themselves and use others for guidance. According to the calculation of the dead, according to the parishes made in Paris, comparing their years, almost as many babies die in the first three years as in the others, counting up to a hundred. So, let's assume that in Russia there are up to 12 million males; of these, one million are in such a marriage that children are born, putting together, one in two years. Therefore, every year there will be half a million born, of which half will die in three years, or more, due to local negligence, and more, so that every year a hundred thousand babies will die in participation, not more than three years old. Is it not worth our labor and care, so that at least a tenth, that is, ten thousand, can be preserved in life in convenient ways?

7) Until now about natural circumstances, harmful to babies; it remains to mention the damage, from superstition and gross stubbornness occurring. Priests, not only rural, but also urban, baptize babies in the winter in the coldest water, sometimes with ice, pointing to the prescription in the breviary that the water be natural without admixture, and they attribute warmth to the admixed matter, and do not think that in summer they themselves baptize with warm water, in their opinion, mixed. So, they will rebuke themselves; and especially because of their thoughtlessness, they do not know that even in the coldest water there is still a lot of warmth. From freezing into ice, water takes on a cold of up to 130 degrees, and even here you can consider it hot, because freezing mercury has an incomparably greater distance from this degree than water, from boiling water to freezing. However, there is no need for ignorant priests to interpret physics, it is enough to force them by the authorities so that they always baptize with water, which is equal to summer warmth in reasoning, because cold is, of course, harmful to a baby who has recently come out of a warm mother's womb, and especially who has undergone a lot in birth. One immersion in temperate water is not without burden to the infant, when phlegm enters the eyes, ears, nostrils, and sometimes even into the mouth (and when the mouth and nostrils are blocked by the hand, then breathing is stopped, which the infant has only recently received). When cold water with ice engulfs the limbs, signs of an epilepsy are often visible, and although he will get rid of the font alive, however, in the following diseases, which every baby must overcome afterward, and especially when the first teeth come out, this deadly disease will more conveniently resume. Such stubborn priests, who want to forcefully baptize with cold water, I consider executioners, because they want after their births and christenings soon and a funeral for their own self-interest. How many unhappy parents are there, who have given birth to 10 or 15 children, and not a single one is left alive?

8) The disastrous infantile beginning of life is followed by adventures that attack human health in other directions. And, firstly, intemperance and carelessness with established customs, especially in Russia, which have taken root and have the appearance of a certain holiness. More than other times, Shrovetide and Holy Week devour us with a great multitude of people only by the variable use of drink and food. It is easy to judge that, in preparation for the abstention of Great Lent, in all of Russia many people are so full of shit that there is no time left for fasting. The dead in the taverns, along the streets and along the roads, and frequent burials clearly prove this. Conversation is like that. Yes, and there is nothing to marvel at: besides intemperance on sacrificial days with drink and food, many try for the whole [great] fast to be satisfied with carnal mixing legally and lawlessly, and so exhaust themselves until clean Monday that they cannot repair their health by any measure, using coarse fasting foods that are painful even for a healthy stomach. Moreover, the beginning of spring soon follows, when all the filthiness accumulated from humans and from other animals, which were imprisoned all winter from frost, is suddenly released and fills the air, mixes with water, and we, with wet and scurvy fish, into the stomach, into the lung, into blood flows into the nerves and into the whole structure of the vital members of the human body, gives birth to diseases in the healthy, multiplies them in the sick and hastens death in those who could still live longer. After that, the bright resurrection of Christ, universal Christian joy, is approaching. Then, although they read almost incessantly and repeatedly repeat the passions of the Lord, our thoughts are already in the holy week: another imagines pleasant and quick meals; another thinks whether his dress will be in time for the holiday; another imagines how he will have fun with relatives and friends; another waits for supplies to arrive from the village; some prepare picturesque eggs and, no doubt, look forward to kissing beauties or having a nicer rendezvous. Finally, matins began at midnight and Mass was served before dawn. Christ is Risen! only in the ears and in the tongue, but in the heart what a place for him, where worldly desires and the smallest wells are all filled. Like dogs let loose from a leash, like accumulated water from an open dam, like whirlwinds breaking through from a cloud, they tear, break, knock down, refute, torment: there are scattered pieces of various meats, broken dishes, spilled drinks flow, there lie unconsciously weighed down by gluttony and drunkenness, there lay naked and exhausted by fornication recent strict fasters. Oh, true Christian fasting and celebration! Is it not with such that God is indignant at the prophet: Your feasts my soul hates, and your censer is an abomination before me. Meanwhile, the poor stomach, having become accustomed after a long time to low-nutrient foods, is suddenly forced to take fat and greasy brashn into the contracted and weakened passages and, not having the required contentment of vital juices, sends undigested food through the veins: they spiral, the blood flow is stopped, and the soul in the heavenly doors that were opened then flies right out of the tightness of the body. To be sure about this, you can consult church records, around which time in the whole year the priests have more honey for kutya. There is an undeniable fact that the unequal course of life and the drastically variable nutrition of the body is not only harmful to a person, but also deadly, so that the aforementioned strict fasters, moreover, zealous and zealous holiday-lovers, can be considered suicides. It is true that if someone prepares at Shrove Tuesday for fasting by a moderate life, does not exhaust himself unnecessarily during fasting and fasts more in spirit than in his belly, on holy week he rejoices about being sent to [great] fasting in true virtues, in labors, society useful and dear to God, and not about the fact that he lived to see the resolution of everything - he, of course, will feel less seizures from an unhealthy time, and especially when by labor he sets the blood in motion and, in a word, maintains himself, at least with fasting, then fast food , but equally moderate, without steep jumps and hillocks.

But here, in the north, this is fat at the ends, and in the middle the dry time is the most idle part of the year, when the peasants do not have any big work and only the sown, reaped, ground and ground fruits of the field eat up. Merchants behind broken roads and mudslides have almost no travel from city to city with goods; there is no contented movement for sailing ships and sea people; military people are on campaigns in winter quarters, and at home, sometimes for frost, sometimes for slush, exercises cannot be convenient. So, most of the people should remain in idleness, which, in contemplation and breaking the fast, gives rise to unbridled luxury, and in fasting, combined with last year's bad food and unhealthy air, spoils health and shortens life.

Many will say: “Yes, people live! Our fathers and great-grandfathers lived for many centuries!” True, the Lapps also live, eating almost only fish; Yes, look at how big they are in body and how crowded, and compare them with the seed-eaters living in the same climate, eating mostly meat: the first are shallow in growth, few people, so that they are 700 miles long and 300 wide - Lapps only a little, that in large soldier sets from all over the earth, two soldiers from the number of souls are hired from our people, because of them it is very rare that anyone is at least fit for soldiers. Semoyads, on the contrary, are not small in stature, broad-shouldered and strong, and in such a multitude that if internecine frequent bloody battles between many of their princelings had not happened, then the noble part of the east-north coast would have been populated by them crowdedly. See that those Russian regions are more populous, where livestock is more abundant, then that in many places where livestock is scarce, and in the meat-eater, for the most part, they eat fish or empty cabbage soup with bread. If our Maslenitsa had been laid in the month of May, then Lent would have been in full spring and early summer, and holy week around St. Peter's Day; then [when] in addition to new fruits of the earth and fresh fish and favorable air: 1) the movement of the body would hasten to maintain health in the peasants by arable work, in the merchant class - by long-distance travel by land and by sea, by the military - by exercise and campaigns; 2) for the sake of correcting such necessary work, there would be less idleness, the mother of intemperance, less guests and feasts, less drunkenness, unequal living and intermittent nutrition, tearing human health. And besides, even if someone got drunk, however, returning home, they would not freeze on the road, as happens about Shrovetide, and would not fall through the ice, as happens on holy week.

I am addressing you, great teachers and arrangers of fasts and holidays, and with all reverence I ask your holiness: what did you think of us at that time, when the holy great fast was instituted at this time? It seems to me that you, in your holiness, meekness, patience and sincerity, will give a gracious answer, and not in the same way as Archpriest Andreevsky Yakov did - in the church you don’t choose obscenely, or else, as he and sea captain Yankov on bright Sunday at the cross for If you didn’t kiss your hand, don’t hit your chest with your fist. You will say: “Disposing fasts and holidays, we lived in Greece and in the promised land; then they set up the holy fortecost, when with us, with the full radiance of the spring sun, the earthly rich bowels open, it grows young greens filled with healthy juices and renews the air with fragrant perfumes; early fruits ripen, serving as food, cooling and medicine; Our singing for the praise of God was matched by murmuring streams, rustling leaves, and singing sweet-voiced birds. And about your midnight side, we argued that not only there is not and will not be a Christian law, but below a single verbal inhabitant for the sake of a great cold. Don't complain about us! How could we order you to eat dates and figs and drink good grape wine according to krasoul, which will not be born among you? Arrange, as intelligent people do, according to your climate; use another, most capable time for fasting, or at a bad time use moderately healthy foods. You have a clergy, equal to us in power from Christ, having to knit and decide. For such an important matter, an ecumenical council can be composed in Russia: the preservation of the life of only a great multitude of people is worth it. And besides that, by teaching, root everyone into the idea that it is more pleasing to God when we have a clear conscience in our hearts than scurvy fish in our stomachs; that fasts were instituted not for suicide with harmful food, but for abstaining from excess; that a deceiver, a robber, an unjust one, a bribe-taker, a thief, and other images of his neighbor will not find forgiveness, even if he ate wood chips, brick, bast, clay and coal instead of ordinary Lenten food for seven weeks and would stand on his head instead of earthly ones for most of that time bows. Pure repentance is a good life, bowing God to mercy, to generosity and to our love. Save the commandments given by Christ, on which all the law and the prophets hang: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart (that is, not with your guts) and your neighbor as yourself (i.e., with your conscience, and not with your tongue)." There are terrible obstacles to correcting this deficiency, but no more dangerous than forcing them to shave their beards, wear a German dress, communicate courtesy with non-believers, force the sailors to eat meat during the summer fasts, destroy the boyars, the patriarchate and the archers and instead establish the Governing Senate, the Holy Synod, new regular army, move the capital to an empty place and the new year in another month! The Russian people are flexible!

9) In addition, a great many people also fall into various other diseases, for the cure of which there are still very few decent institutions, as mentioned above, and only mostly simple, illiterate men and women are treated at random, often combining natural methods, as much as they understand, with divination and whispering, and thus not only do not give any strength to their medicines, but they also strengthen superstition in people, fear the sick with dull looks and multiply the disease, bringing them closer to death. True, there are many of them who really know how to treat certain diseases, and especially external ones, like horse-dressers and chiropractors, so that sometimes even learned surgeons are superior in some cases, but it’s always better to establish [treatment] according to the rules that compose medical science. To this, a sufficient number of doctors, healers and pharmacies are required in all cities, satisfied with medicines, even if only decent in our climate - which is not only not even a hundredth part, but the Russian army is very dissatisfied with the supply of doctors, so that doctors do not have time to bandage and the wounded, not only to examine everyone, to ask them in detail, to give medicines and thereby calm the suffering. From such disdain, many who would come to life die. Nothing can fill this shortcoming as quickly as to send a sufficient number of Russian students to foreign universities to study the doctorate, and to give the universities established and continue to be established within the state, among other privileges, the power to produce worthy doctors. The medical office firmly confirms that both in pharmacies and with doctors there are a sufficient number of Russian students, whom they would teach their art at a certain time and represent to the senate. It is a shame and annoyance to hear that the students of the Russian people, having been in pharmacies for ten or more years, can hardly compose any medicines. And for what? Then, that the pharmacists still keep German apprentices, while the Russians, under the yoke, under the sieve, and under the coal, live to old age and die as apprentices; and the whole state cannot be filled with Germans. Moreover, insufficient knowledge of the language, difference of faith, dissimilar morals, and expensive wages hinder them a lot.

10) Deaths from disease are followed by violent, natural and accidental circumstances as the reasons for the deprivation of human life, that is, plagues, fires, drownings, frosts. Fables against people, although for the most part in the southern borders of the local state, occur, but all sorts of ways against it should be used. They consist in the destruction of what has already begun or in the aversion of what is coming. The first requires certain means to be used against such a misfortune, and for this, having chosen the best from the authors, one must compose a book for the medical faculty and, having printed it, sell it all over the state. For the second, it is necessary to collect signs from former examples, of which the main one is an eclipse of the sun, which almost always causes a death to cattle, and then a plague on people. In our enlightened ages, people who turn from astronomers know about this in great light and can take precautions, not letting the cattle out of the house and not giving the grass that was taken off that day; so, in other states, they are careful two or three days after, and they themselves do not remove or use any fruits at that time, saying that poisonous dews fall during a solar eclipse. The main [this] reason to be seems, in my opinion, that during an eclipse the sun is covered by the moon, the same body as our earth; the electrical force that the sun pours out on all plants all day long is cut short, as can be seen on the grasses that sleep at night and also suffer during a solar eclipse. Time will teach how much the electric force can act in the reasoning of the fad. Eclipses are not known in the whole state, and for this it is necessary to publish in advance and, if necessary, order decrees, following the example, as is customary in other states. To get rid of a fiery death, there is a precaution to extinguish frequent and great fires, about which it will seem at length in a letter on better state economy. The essence of drowning is twofold: from flooding and from careless insolence, especially in drunkenness. The first can be easily averted by forbidding that by the great rivers in low places, especially subject to spring water, there should be no dwellings. This is done out of sheer laziness, so that water and hay and all conveniences from water are close at hand. However, often in high places, those who live see in the spring, being themselves safe, like cattle and people and entire houses, impregnable ice carries in the despair of any salvation. The second sinkings cannot be averted by anything without detracting from a lot of visiting and drunkenness, for which people dare to cross rivers in stormy weather, overloading ships with a multitude, or to cross ice in autumn and spring, when it is very unreliable and dangerous. In the chapter on the destruction of idleness, methods will be proposed [for avoiding this] as well as for delivering the freezing of many in winter.

11) Considerable damage is caused to the people by murders, which happen in fights and from robbers. There are harmful fights between neighbors, and especially between landlords, who cannot be extinguished by anything like land surveying. Although detectives are sent to the robbers, there is almost no hope to bring out this evil through it, or even significantly reduce it. Fundamental and strongest methods are required for this. The next one seems to me more reliable, more thrifty, and more glorious and more amiable to the most merciful monarch, because he will have his effect with less shedding of human blood. Robbers without shelter in cities and near villages cannot stay and use their villainy for a long time; they stay near the villages, but in the cities they usually often come to sell stolen belongings. So, when these places are made narrow and cramped for them, they cannot be hidden for a long time; it will not be necessary to send teams far away and make bloody battles with many, when you can have the opportunity to sort out one by one and catch them often. The long-awaited and long-term peace within our fatherland after a hundred and fifty years, at which time, after the devastation from the Poles, it was not necessary to defend ourselves from enemies with walls, gave our negligence a reason to have little care for city fences, and therefore most of the small cities and towns and many provincial and provincial cities not only have stone walls, or although reliable ramparts and ditches, they also do not have wooden front gardens or fences - which I see, not without regret, from the answers sent to geographical questions to the Academy of Sciences from all cities by decree of the Governing Senate, in my opinion. In addition to the fact that passing foreigners do not look without contempt at our disorderly cities, or, rather, almost at ruins, the robbers use them as their refuge and can also hide themselves from worthy punishment in the city or even better than in the countryside, because the city is larger and from all sides in it, in every place, the gates are constantly open day and night to thieves and good people. When would it be merciful to command all Russian cities, in which the fence collapsed, or did not exist, to fortify, although not with stone walls, but only with a rampart and a moat and a high front garden and not in many places leave gates with strong constipation and with reliable petty-bourgeois guards - where there are no garrisons - so that the rows and shops were inside the fence, then it would be very difficult for thieves to transport looted things into the city for sale and it was incomparably easier to use everything for precautionary inspection than in a place open on all sides, and a robber may be more likely to be noticed at the gate, who, without selling the looted things, will not receive self-interest. In addition, in each fenced city, appoint permanent lodging for the night for passers-by and travelers with written permission and with a sign, and order that each owner every day announce in the town hall who was at his lodging for the night and how long, while other philistines should be taken to house visitors and hallways had no will, under fear of punishment, except for their relatives, known in the city. To publish in all volosts, churchyards and villages that if a peasant or two or more catch a robber, bring him to a city or other safe place and prove it by reliable witnesses, and there will be no dispute about that, then give the drivers 10 rubles for each head. from the petty-bourgeois state tax, and for the main villainous leaders, for the ataman, the captain, as well as for catching and arguing the one who holds the thieves' shelters - 30 rubles each. Although this seems to be enough, where the cities are not very far away, however, there are many places in Russia that are deaf, for 500 or more miles without cities, direct shelters for robbers and all kinds of fugitive and passportless people. An example is the wooded space near the Vetluga River, which, stretching for 700 miles from the peaks to the mouth, does not have a single city with it. There, from the Volga, a great number of barge haulers hide in winter, of which a considerable part are robbers. The peasants keep them all winter for half a person, and if he works, they feed him without pay, without asking for a passport. Cities should be founded and set up in such places, giving civil rights to noble villages, establishing town halls and voivodships and protecting them from robbers with reliable fortifications and precautions, as shown above. This will serve not only for the general security and preservation of the Russian people, but also for the special glory of our most merciful autocrat, as the regenerator of the old and the co-builder of many new Russian cities.

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On the preservation and reproduction of the Russian people. Lomonosov read Lomonosov, On the preservation and reproduction of the Russian people

In my opinion, the groom's bride should not be older than only two years, and the groom older can be 15 years. This is because women age faster than men, and especially from frequent pregnancy. Women will give birth just after 45 years, and men are often capable of fertility even up to 60 years.

It seems to me that it would not be contrary to the laws if, in order to multiply the people and to avoid unlawful carnal mixtures, and from that unfortunate adventures, a fourth, and out of necessity, a fifth marriage was allowed, following the example of other Christian peoples.

Is it possible to think that a young person, living in monasticism without any sorrow, content with food and drink, and in all appearance healthy, strong and fat, would not be subject to carnal lusts, which are always the more intensified, the more strongly they are forbidden.

According to the calculation of the dead by parish, carried out in Paris, comparing their years, almost as many babies die in the first three years as in others, counting up to a hundred.

From freezing into ice, water takes in a cold of up to 130 degrees, and even here you can consider it hot, because freezing mercury has an incomparably greater distance from this degree than water from boiling water to freezing.

It is easy to judge that, in preparation for the abstention of Great Lent, in all of Russia many people are so full of shit that there is no time left for fasting. The dead in the taverns, along the streets and along the roads, and frequent burials clearly prove this.

It is an undeniable fact that the unequal course of life and the abruptly changing nutrition of the body is not only harmful to a person, but also deadly, so that the aforementioned strict fasters, moreover, zealous and zealous holiday-lovers, can be considered suicides.

On the reproduction and preservation of the Russian people. 1761

Letter from M. V. Lomonosov to Count I. I. Shuvalov "On the Preservation and Reproduction of the Russian People"