Since the end of 2019, the global epidemic has been around for more than three years, and the anti-epidemic policies of various countries are different, but our country is definitely the best controlled.
Many people have an argument about this, believing that only Chinese people can do it in terms of national conditions, culture, etc. That’s right, the whole nation stopped during the epidemic, and
cooperated consciously. This awareness does not mean that there is something, but also the spirit tempered by the epidemic over thousands of years.
Today we will talk about the major epidemics that are closer to us in history.
1. Ming Dynasty Plague
This matter starts with the peasant uprising led by Li Zicheng . Li Zicheng is known as a million-strong army. Where did this person come from? They are all displaced and desperate farmers.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, there was an angle in history that the earth was in a small ice age of , with an extremely cold climate and a temperature as low as tens of degrees below zero. This caused a serious food shortage, coupled with other natural disasters , resulting in an unprecedented famine.
There are hungry everywhere, and a large number of farmers left their hometowns and began to flee the famine, so they gathered a large number of refugees. Don’t talk about humans, even mice cannot eat enough. The mice are starving all year round and their resistance decreases, so the mice begin to get sick and die, which is what they develop into plague.
Once people are so hungry, they will eat whatever they see, so mice are treated as food to fill their hunger. When people eat sick mice, they become sick, and then there is a large-scale epidemic of plague.
Wanli In the eighth year, a plague broke out in Datong, Shanxi, with many people infected and one after another. A politician named Zuo Maodi was ordered to supervise the grain transportation. Seeing this, he submitted an urgent note to the emperor. The above statement is "Three people who die of hunger, three people who die of epidemics, and four people who are robbers." This means that there are no people who have been completely destroyed by famine and plague this time.
Chongzhen From seven to eight years, today, the plague occurred in Xing County, Luliang, Shanxi Province, and almost all people in the county ran away. At this beginning, the epidemic spreads everywhere every year. Fortunately, transportation was inconvenient in that era and population movement was not easy, so it would not explode all of a sudden, but it could not withstand it for years.
By July 2014, the epidemic was finally spread to the capital through Hebei. According to the actual records of Chongzhen, the death toll of the capital was tens of thousands of times.
At that time, the imperial court gathered famous doctors to study the treatment methods for plague. Unfortunately, no one had seen it before. He could only hold a book called " Theory of Fever and Miscellaneous Diseases " to try to find a good cure, but all ended in failure.
Every time the Chinese are difficult times, they are protected by brave people. An infectious disease scientist named Wu Youke appeared. In order to find the cause of the disease, he searched all the pigpens, cowsheds, and places where all the animals gathered. Finally, he found that this plague was caused by airborne viruses, causing large-scale infection.
Wu Youke in movies and TV shows
This discovery is great and is also the first in the world to propose this theory. Later, in order to fight the epidemic, Wu Youke developed a prescription called "Dayuan Drink". This prescription is recorded in " Plague Theory " written by Wu Youke. It is also the world's first work to systematically explain the academic research of plague. More than 200 years earlier than later generations.
The epidemic was effectively controlled by drinking the original drink, and many people were cured. The most amazing thing is that in SARS, "Dayuan Drink" has also been proven to have a definite therapeutic effect.
2. The smallpox of the Qing Dynasty
It is said that what made the Qing emperors and the people most afraid of was not the enemy, but the smallpox virus.
Among the Qing emperors, Shunzhi and Tongzhi died directly from smallpox.
At that time, smallpox was a malignant infectious disease with a very high mortality rate, and the pandemic occurred between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The number of people who die from smallpox every year is about 500,000 in Europe and 800,000 in Asia. The total number of Europeans who died of smallpox throughout the 18th century was about 150 million.
so the smallpox virus left a psychological shadow in Kangxi psychology. During the Qing Dynasty, if the princes did not have smallpox, they would have been isolated in a special place until you had smallpox. Because at that time, if there was no smallpox in childhood, the infection rate later was extremely high and the risk was extremely high.
Kangxi also had smallpox when he was a child, but he miraculously cured it and only fell a little pockmarked. So after he was in power, the first way to deal with smallpox was to isolate.
Later, Kangxi set up a special "Acne Checking" department in the Imperial Hospital to study how to deal with smallpox. Soon they discovered a way to deal with smallpox, which is " acne ". It is equivalent to vaccinating the baby born now with vaccinated vaccination, and the child will not get smallpox.
But at that time people didn’t know how to get vaccinated or what the vaccine was. Through experience, it was found that as long as the clothes of the person with smallpox are worn by the person who has no smallpox, or the substance on the wound is applied to the nose and eyes, the symptoms of smallpox in this child will be much lighter, and some will not die even if there is no symptoms.
Later, in-depth research and experiments were conducted in the "Check the Acne Zhangjing" department and found that many people use this method to immunize it is indeed effective. During Qianlong's reign, he carried forward the style of Kangxi and Yongzheng's emphasis on medicine. The imperial physician Wu Qian was responsible for editing " Medical School Jinjian ", and developed a systematic method to fight smallpox against "planting beans".
Due to the popularity of "poxenic acne", the smallpox epidemic in the northern part of the Qing Dynasty and the Central Plains was quickly brought under control. At that time, Western missionaries also counted that the "poxenic" method implemented by Kangxi reduced the original mortality rate of smallpox of 20%-30% to 1%. Therefore, at that time, , Russian also sent people to China to learn "poxenic" to facilitate returning to China to treat their own smallpox.
From this matter, we can see that in China, this matter is the focus from top to bottom, from old to young, so there is a possibility of repelling the epidemic.
3. The plague in Northeast China in 1910
This plague is different from the plague mentioned above in the late Ming Dynasty. This time the fight against the epidemic laid the basic model of fighting the epidemic. Moreover, the famous "Wu style mask" was invented by Chinese people in this epidemic.
On October 12, 1910, a man suddenly died on the Sino-Russian border and his whole body turned black.
A few days ago, this guy went out to hunt and saw an marmot nest. There was a marmot lying on the entrance of the cave, motionless. This guy happily took it home and cooked it for food. This attack, from him, caused more than 60,000 deaths.
This epidemic spread very quickly and it spread to Harbin not long after. Then Qiqihar , Fengtian (Today's Shenyang) fell one after another, and the epidemic became increasingly serious.
In mid-October 1910, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Shi Zhaoji received a note from Russia and Japan. Russia and Japan believed that the Qing government was unable to control the epidemic and proposed that they preside over the epidemic prevention work of in the three northeastern provinces.
Although it is a health incident, it involves a series of sovereignty issues such as education, commerce, railways, and justice. If Russia and Japan are agreed to preside over the work, it is equivalent to giving up the management rights of the three northeastern provinces. Of course, the Qing government could not agree with the proposals of both countries.
Since this is the case, you have to control the epidemic by yourself. So Shi Zhaoji found Wu Liande, the then deputy supervisor of the Tianjin Beiyang Army and Military Medical School.
Shi Zhaoji told Wu Lien-teh that you must come. If we cannot control the epidemic ourselves, Russia and Japan will use this as an excuse to forcefully take over the control of the three northeastern provinces. To be honest, this is no longer just fighting the epidemic, but fighting for the country.
Wu Lien-teh then brought his assistant to Harbin. At that time, people thought it was the plague, so it was naturally passed on to people by mice. So the method is simple and crude, and more than 80,000 mice were eliminated. However, the epidemic has not been effectively controlled, which shows that the transmission route has little to do with mice.
Wu Lien-teh went to Harbin to dissect the body, but people's idea at that time was that even if a person died, he had to leave a whole body. So people refused to let it go until December 27 when a Japanese woman who intermarried with the local area died and was able to be dissected.
Wu Lien-teh found that the deceased's lungs were severely congested and the lymph nodes in the lungs were abnormally swollen. Therefore, it is inferred that this epidemic was transmitted between people by the air. Based on this inference, Wu Lien-teh began his own epidemic prevention measures.
Wu Lien-teh divided the severely affected areas into four areas, each area equipped with certain hospitals, police, epidemic prevention personnel and medical supplies. Residents in different regions wear different colors of logos, and different badges can only be used in this region. If you want to cross-regional activities, you must apply for a pass. Doctors and epidemic prevention personnel patrol every day, and once patients are found, they will be quarantined immediately.
includes sterilization and disinfection in the infected area. According to this method, Fengtian and Heilongjiang have also established an epidemic prevention system.
At that time, railway transportation was relatively convenient, and population movement was very fast. Wu Lien-teh required that the entrances and exits of railway stations with cross-regional population movement must be controlled, and no matter who it is, they will be quarantined for five to seven days. Even the then Prince young master was isolated in Shanhaiguan for five days before he was able to return to Beijing.
plus the Wu-style mask invented at that time requires anti-epidemic personnel to wear it, and ordinary residents should wear it as much as possible, thus effectively blocking the chain of infection.
sounds like today's health code , itinerary card, isolation area and other epidemic prevention policies.
Under Wu Lien-teh's series of measures, in March 1911, Harbin finally had no infection or death. On April 23, the Qing government announced that all plague in the three northeastern provinces would be eliminated. The whole nation won the fight against the epidemic.
So China has the current anti-epidemic results, which is directly related to the fact that we have experienced many epidemics in history. On the one hand, we continue to summarize and innovate in the face of the epidemic. Our government always puts people's lives and property first, and only by uniting together can we overcome every epidemic.
Although it is difficult to fight the epidemic, we respect science, respect life, and believe that it is only a matter of time before we overcome the current epidemic.
