PLAGUE EPIDEMICS AND THE FORMATION OF AN ANTI-PLAGUE SERVICE IN TSARITSYN AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY
Since the second half of the 19th century, outbreaks of plague have been regularly recorded in the Lower Volga region. For many years, the medical community believed that the disease being spread to the Volga region from Asian countries, as a result of trade and cultural contacts. However, at the beginning of the 20th century, Russian bacteriologists put forward a hypothesis about the endemic nature of plague epidemics in the Lower Volga region. To identify factors and possible hotbed of plague in 1913, a bacteriological laboratory was established in the city of Tsaritsyn, headed by the plagueologist A.A. Churilina. The laboratory staff carried out regular studies of steppe rodents for the carrier of the plague bacillus. As a result of this work, foci of epizootics were identified in the Tsaritsyn district, which made it possible to plan anti-epidemic measures. A.A. Churilina and her staff carried out bacteriological studies for diagnostic purposes, and trained doctors in bacteriology. The laboratory became the center of the anti-plague service in the Saratov province.