The fear of contacting lepers was typical not only among the Yakut people, but also among the Russians who lived in the area. The men who accompanied the mission were no exception. When Miss Marsden together with two Cossacks and the interpreter came closer to the lepers’ shacks, the rest of the men usually scattered in the forest and waited, watching nervously from a distance.

After visiting more than 80 lepers in their shacks, Kate Marsden returned to Yakutsk on July 31, where she met Reverend Miletiy again and told him about what she had seen during the two unforgettable months on horseback in the depths of the taiga. Having discussed plans for raising funds to facilitate construction of the colony for the Yakut lepers, she then set off down the Lena river to Irkutsk. The General-Governor of Irkutsk summoned a meeting where Miss Marsden reported her observations and appealed to the participants for the immediate help. The first donation of 1,500 rubles was collected right at the meeting. Very soon, owing to Miss Marsden’s steadfast activity, the total sum of the fund rose to 20,000 rubles.

In the beginning of October Miss Marsden left Yakutsk and headed for Tomsk, where she arrived in November. In Tomsk she continued appealing to the local authorities, trying to raise more funds for the Yakut lepers. She also had a meeting with the Mother Superior of the local Orthodox convent and told her about the terrible conditions of the lepers in the taiga. The Mother Superior promised to send some nuns to the Yakutsk area to take care of the lepers, provided the Orthodox Authorities gave their approval.

The way back to Moscow was much easier and all the hardships of the arduous journey were almost forgotten in Ufa, where Miss Marsden was very happy to see an engine and to find herself in a railway carriage after ten months spent in carts, sledges, boats, and on horseback. Her next stop was Samara. There she requested the Governor to call up local doctors for a meeting and made a report about her expedition to Vilyuisk. It turned out that a couple of weeks before that meeting a few lepers were driven from the city of Samara to the remote villages. Miss Marsden insisted that a special house for the lepers should be allocated and some funds for maintaining that house should be raised. Before Miss Marsden left Samara, the local lepers had been placed into the special house, though many city dwellers had been very angry about it. Miss Marsden explained to the local community that it would be much more reasonable to keep lepers in one place rather than to let the disease spread around in the remote villages. 

In December she returned to Moscow and then went to St. Petersburg where she continued to raise funds for the lepers. The Empress, who accorded her a very warm welcome, promised to provide all possible assistance and introduced her to the top Russian nobility. Having heard details about Miss Marsden’s expedition, the Crown Prince Nikolai, future Russian Emperor Nikolai II, gave 5,000 rubles for starting the lepers’ colony. Ober-Procurator Pobedonostsev, the Synod’s top authoritative official, petitioned to the Synod to start raising money in favor of the Yalkut lepers in churches and personally donated 3,000 rubles to the newly set up fund.

Meanwhile, the Medical Department, the top administrative body in charge of the medical issues in the Russian Empire, elaborated a draft project for the future colony. It was planned that the colony would comprise ten houses for ten lepers in each, two hospitals for men and women, a church, a house for a doctor and two assistants, a house for nurses and other staff of the colony, a workshop, a bathhouse, and a mortuary. It was supposed that each of the houses would also have a small garden and a cattle-shed for two cows. Besides, a big kitchen garden was supposed to provide enough vegetables for the whole colony. The total cost of the project was estimated at 90,000 rubles. The necessary sum was raised quite soon and the colony was officially opened and consecrated on December 5, 1892. Inspired by Miss Marsden’s feat, five Russian nurses, members of Moscow Commune of Nurses “Utoli Moya Pechali” (Soothe My Sorrows) followed to Yakutsk to work for the colony.

The colony, which was the first such institution for lepers in Siberia, survived the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and the Civil War, and existed until the beginning of 1960s, when it was reorganized and the last Yakut lepers were sent to be treated in the Irkutsk hospital for lepers. In fact, the colony inspired by the British nurse Kate Marsden became the first move in the long-lasting campaign for exterminating leprosy among the Yakut people.

Having returned to England, Miss Marsden continued her work on helping lepers and founded St. Francis Leper Guild in London. Later she gave lectures in Europe and in the United States, raising funds for charity, and wrote a book about her unforgettable journey titled On Sledge and Horseback to Outcast Siberian Lepers. As for the herb that motivated her to go to the remotest part of the Siberian taiga and to withstand all the hardships, Miss Marsden managed to find this herb in Siberia eventually and sent it to India. The herb, however, did not prove to have a curative effect, though it provided certain relief in some cases.

References

1.    Puteshestvie Miss Marsden to the Yakutsk Oblast [Traveling of Miss Marsden to the Yakutsk region], Moscow 1893.

2.    Anglichanka Ekaterina Marsden v Sibiri u Prokazhennykh [English Kate Marsden visiting lepers in Siberia] St. Petersburg 1894.

3.    Puteshestvie Angliiskoi Sestry Miloserdia v Yakutskuyu Oblast dlya Pomoshchi Prokazhennym [Traveling of an English Sister of Mercy to the Yakut region for helping the lepers], St. Petersburg 1892.

4.    www.stfrancisleprocy.org

5.    www.gazetayakutia.ru

6.    www.sakha.ru/sakha/republic/marsden

7.    www.egregor.ru/pravoslavie/mitrpolit

Ed. Note: Yuri Bessonov is a Russian physician who works as a translator, independent researcher and a freelance journalist in the fields of nursing history and history of hospital care. He has carried out extensive research in the history of nursing in Russia and in some European countries. 

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