Generally speaking, people use plague to represent infectious diseases that are highly harmful. However, in some places in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in my country, the "plague god" in the mouths of the people does not refer to infectious diseases, but the terrible schistosomiasis .
On the eve of the founding of New China, nearly 400 counties in twelve provinces in my country were prevalent in nearly 400 counties.
More than 10 million people are suffering from schistosomiasis. Thousands of villages have even been destroyed, and tens of thousands of families have been destroyed.
▲The fact that schistosomiasis patients with
such a serious fact has attracted the attention of the central leaders.
Under their leadership, "The Battle to Eliminate Schistosoma schistosomiasis" was launched in various parts of New China, and in this battle, Chairman Mao played a crucial role.
01
Chairman Mao is determined to eliminate schistosomiasis
Schistosomiasis
Schistosomiasis is a parasite that is extremely harmful to humans and animals. It is widely distributed in my country. Schistosoma schistosomiasis is distributed in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and in the southeastern provinces.
Even in the female corpse unearthed from the Mawangdui Han Tomb , scientists also found schistosomiasis eggs, which shows that schistosomiasis has been epidemic in China for at least a thousand years.
▲Schistosomiasis diagram
Because the ancients did not know much about the pathogenic mechanism of schistosomiasis, this also made it very difficult to prevent schistosomiasis.
Before the founding of New China, many areas in southern my country were suffering from schistosomiasis.
During the Republic of China, more than 300,000 people died of schistosomiasis infection in Jiangxi Province alone, which laid huge hidden dangers for local development and stability.
At that time, it was not without anyone paying attention to the issue of schistosomiasis.
Medical expert Mao Shoubai , who has visited many countries in the United States and the United Kingdom, once applied for funds from the Nanjing government to prevent and control schistosomiasis.
However, this proposal was denied by the Kuomintang authorities, and the government of the Republic of China did not take special "worm control" actions in the later stages, which intensified the infection of schistosomiasis.
▲Sculpture of the Crossing River Battle
Although Mao Zedong grew up in Hunan where schistosomiasis is widely distributed, there are no reports of schistosomiasis cases in his hometown Shaoshan Chong . Therefore, Mao Zedong did not have a deep feeling about schistosomiasis when he was young. After
, he moved to the northwest and other places for many years, which gave Chairman Mao no chance to understand the harm of schistosomiasis.
The first time he felt the huge harm of schistosomiasis was during the Battle of Crossing the River during the Liberation War.
Many of the PLA soldiers involved in the operation at that time were infected with schistosomiasis, which led to severe non-combat attrition, which made Chairman Mao very worried.
However, due to the limited front-line diagnosis and treatment conditions, the cause of some soldiers is not clear, and schistosomiasis is just listed as a key target for prevention and treatment by Chairman Mao.
The opportunity to truly let Chairman Mao understand schistosomiasis was in 1953.
At that time, Shen Junru, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and president of the Supreme People's Court, was recuperating at Taihu . His granddaughter happened to be working in the schistosomiasis prevention and control center in Wuxi , so he went there for a visit.
There, Shen Junru learned about the rampant schistosomiasis in Jiangsu at that time and the huge harm it caused to the people, and immediately realized the seriousness of the matter.
He immediately wrote a letter to Chairman Mao to report on the raging situation of schistosomiasis.
▲CPPCC Vice Chairman Shen Junru
Chairman Mao, who cared about the people, immediately attached great importance to the schistosomiasis issue after seeing this letter.
He asked Xi Zhongxun and other national leaders to sort out relevant information on schistosomiasis and proposed to start the prevention and control of schistosomiasis.
This also kicked off the prelude to the "Send the Plague God" movement in my country.
02
Chairman Mao and Schistosomiasis control
Chairman Mao mentioned in his famous article "Opposing Booksism": "There is no right to speak without investigation" 's view.
, a way of working that focuses on practice, has run through his life.
When dealing with schistosomiasis prevention and control, Chairman Mao listened to the information reported by relevant experts on the one hand, and on the other hand, he also paid great attention to communication with the people in the epidemic area.
In 1955, when Chairman Mao went to Hangzhou for a meeting, he was busy with work and had no time, so he asked his staff around him to visit the fields and ask the local people about schistosomiasis.
At that time, the staff found an old man who was deeply tortured by schistosomiasis, and then several people reported the old man's condition to Chairman Mao.
Chairman Mao felt very sad after hearing this and emphasized: New China must solve infectious diseases including schistosomiasis so that the people can live a good life.
▲Chairman Mao inspected labor
Afterwards, Chairman Mao went to Jiangxi Provinces with the most severe schistosomiasis and other provinces for on-site inspections.
In the gap between discussing agricultural economic development with provincial leaders, he always takes time to inquire about the prevention and control of schistosomiasis.
This gave him a rough understanding of the current situation of schistosomiasis control in various provinces in Jiangnan.
After mastering this information, Chairman Mao proposed in the "Opinions on Seventeen Articles on Agriculture" issued on December 21, 1955 that "within seven years, several of the most serious diseases that harm people and livestock will be basically eliminated, such as schistosomiasis, plague , encephalitis , rinderpest , swine fever , etc. "'s requirement.
In the following six months, he emphasized the issue of schistosomiasis prevention and control in several meetings, and brought together leaders from multiple provinces to discuss schistosomiasis prevention and control methods.
Chairman’s emphasis on schistosomiasis has made the prevention and control of schistosomiasis one of the key tasks of each province.
People from all over the world have also quickly devoted themselves to the prevention and control of schistosomiasis, which has made it possible to eliminate large-scale schistosomiasis infections.
▲Public poster for eliminating schistosomiasis
Yujiang County, Jiangxi Province was one of the most serious areas with schistosomiasis at that time.
Starting from the beginning of 1956, the Yujiang County Party Committee formulated the "half-year preparation, one-year battle, and half-year finishing" work plan, and mobilized the masses to participate in schistosomiasis control.
With the joint efforts of people, schistosomiasis prevention and control in Yujiang County achieved exciting results in mid-1958, and the " People's Daily " also reported on this matter.
After seeing the relevant reports, Chairman Mao happily stayed up all night. The next day he wrote two famous poems " Send the Plague God ".
"The spring breeze and thousands of willows, and the six hundred million willows are all over the country", "I want to ask where the plague is going, the paper boat shines brightly on the sky" is still exciting to read.
▲The calligraphy work of "Sending the Plague God"
these two poems by Chairman Mao soon spread throughout China and greatly encouraged the people's confidence in solving stubborn diseases such as schistosomiasis.
People from all over the country have taken actions in accordance with the prevention and control methods of Yujiang County.
schistosomiasis that has plagued our country for thousands of years was significantly curbed, creating a miracle in the history of world health.
03
Scientific prevention and control methods
While mobilizing the masses to participate in the prevention and control of schistosomiasis, Chairman Mao also reminded local governments that must use scientific means to carry out work, and the masses must not act blindly, so as not to cause further expansion of the scope of infection.
After the prevention and control of schistosomiasis was a key task, my country has held many academic conferences on prevention and control of schistosomiasis.
At these meetings, experts exchanged their scientific research results.
After the meeting, these contents will be sent to the hands of local governments, which provides great help in the prevention and control of schistosomiasis.
Among the prevention and control methods mentioned by experts, the most important one is "landfill ditches method" .
Before this, although people learned about the huge role of snail in the transmission of schistosomiasis, there was no good way to eliminate snails.
Some places use artificial fishing, but many of the people who went into the water were infected with schistosomiasis, which is not worth the effort.
▲Schistosomia host snail
At this time, some experts pointed out: If the water in the ditches is dried and then landfilled with soil, the snail will suffocate and die, and the source of infection of schistosomia will be cut off well.
So various southern provinces have carried out the "digging new canals and burying old canals" campaign, which has significantly reduced the number of snails and the infection rate of schistosomiasis has also decreased.
In addition, health publicity activities are also being carried out across the country, requiring everyone to pay attention to water sanitation and water safety, and try not to draw water from rivers and lakes, but to use cleaner well water or other groundwater resources.
Yujiang County has a very important task in the process of preventing and controlling schistosomiasis, which is to build a large number of public water wells across the county and require people to fetch water from the wells. The move of
has also effectively curbed the spread of schistosomiasis.
In addition to snails and contaminated water sources, patients infected with schistosomiasis are also important sources of transmission.
Their feces contain a large amount of schistosomia eggs. If they cannot be properly handled, they will also cause disease in the surrounding residents.
In Yujiang County, where schistosomiasis is severely raging, how to prevent the spread caused by patients is also the most important prevention and treatment topic.
▲Yujiang County Fengguang
After summarizing the experience of many parties, the Yujiang County Party Committee determined that Personal toilets with worrying sanitary conditions are the biggest obstacle to the treatment of schistosomiasis infection.
So in more than a year, all parts of Yujiang County pushed down all the private toilets of each household.
has built a clean public toilet in the village and disinfected the villagers' excrement.
This measure effectively reduces the number of patients with schistosomiasis infection due to fecal infection and makes it possible to control schistosomiasis infection.
In addition to Yujiang County, similar prevention and control methods have been adopted in other areas across the country where schistosomiasis are endemic.
For larger water bodies that cannot empty the water, there will also be signs to remind people not to go into the water and play.
With the help of these scientific prevention and control methods, my country's schistosomiasis prevention and control achieved amazing results in its prevention and control, and this former "plague god" finally lost his magic.
After achieving a phased victory, localities did not relax their vigilance against schistosomiasis that could make a comeback at any time.
Whenever there is a flood, people will clean the ditches to avoid the growth of snails, which will prevent the schistosomia pandemic in our country.
▲People who participated in the campaign to eliminate schistosomiasis
In the process of preventing and controlling schistosomiasis in my country, Chairman Mao’s determination and attention are undoubtedly the greatest driving force of the entire action. The hard work of scientists and the people is the absolute guarantee of success. The success of the campaign to eliminate schistosomiasis not only brought our public health cause to a new level, but also gave people sufficient confidence and pride, laying a solid foundation for the rapid development of our early economy.
article | Minghao Network Studio
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