History of Anthrax Study: From the Holy Scripture to the First Half of the 19th Century

Anthrax (also known as Siberian plague) has been known for a very long time and was recognized as a distinct nosological entity many centuries ago, long before the discovery of the causative pathogen responsible for the disease. Today, anthrax is one of the most thoroughly studied infectious diseases. This makes the analysis of historical religious sources (such as the Holy Scriptures and the Torah) and literary works (including Virgil’s “Georgics”, Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”, and a compilation of ancient Greek medical texts “Hippiatrica”) especially interesting, as these texts directly or indirectly describe the devastation caused by anthrax. For example, the fifth, sixth, and tenth plagues of Egypt are often interpreted as referring specifically to anthrax, while the remaining plagues are thought to create conditions conducive to epizootics and epidemics. The spread of the infection across Europe and Asia is well-documented, including references to anthrax outbreaks among animals in Venice in 1598, large-scale epidemics in Germany, Hungary, and Poland between 1709 and 1714, and the extensive circulation of the disease in the early 19th century in Russia, the Netherlands, and England. Anthrax was first introduced to the Americas in Louisiana by French settlers, during the early 1700s. In Rus’, this long-known infection was referred to by a variety of local and regional names, including postrel (from “to shoot” or “to strike suddenly” possibly referring to the sudden onset of the disease), snake postrel (referring to the fulminant form), and fiery vered or ognevik (referring to the carbuncular form). The term Siberian plague first appeared in Russian medical literature in the 1780s, thanks to the dedicated work of S. S. Andreevsky (1760–1818), including his reports “On Siberian Plague” submitted to the Medical Board of the Russian Empire in 1778 and 1789.