The life and mysterious death of Mikhail Bulgakov. Mikhail Bulgakov: death and illness Where is Bulgakov’s death mask
Themes of Mikhail Bulgakov - remember scientific work with the determination of traces of morphine and markers of nephrosclerosis? Now, in two posts, we present to you a clinical picture of the illness and death of the great writer. And we will rely on the wonderful article by L.I. Dvoretsky “The Illness and Death of the Master (about the illness of Mikhail Bulgakov)”, published in the April 2010 issue of the journal “Clinical Nephrology”.
In 1932, writer Mikhail Bulgakov warned his new chosen one, Elena Sergeevna: “ Keep in mind, I will die very hard - give me an oath that you will not send me to the hospital, and I will die in your arms».
Bulgakov with his wife Elena
There were eight years left before the writer’s death, during which he would complete and almost finish the great work “The Master and Margarita”, in which there would also be hints of sudden death(remember the barman Sokov: “...He will die in nine months, in February next year, from liver cancer in the clinic of the First Moscow State University, in the fourth ward.”)…
Within six months from the onset of the first symptoms, the disease developed to a painful, cruel death: in the last three weeks, Bulgakov went blind, was tormented by terrible pain and stopped editing the novel. What kind of illness treated the writer so cruelly? Moreover, he regularly underwent examinations that did not reveal any somatic pathologies. However, he had already experienced neurotic disorders.
So, in the archive of M.A. Bulgakov, a doctor’s form with a medical report was found:
“05/22/1934. On this date I established that M.A. Bulgakov has severe exhaustion nervous system with symptoms of psychosthenia, as a result of which he was prescribed rest, bed rest and drug treatment.
Comrade Bulgakov will be able to start work in 4-5 days. Alexey Lyutsianovich Iverov. Doctor of the Moscow Art Theater.”
Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova herself mentions such neurotic conditions and attempts to treat them in her diaries in 1934:
“On the 13th we went to Leningrad and were treated there by Dr. Polonsky with electrification.”
“October 13. At M.A. bad with nerves. Fear of space, loneliness. Thinking about turning to hypnosis?”
"The 20th of October. M.A. I phoned Andrei Andreevich (A.A. Arend. - L.D.) about a meeting with Dr. Berg. M.A. I decided to be treated with hypnosis for my fears.”
“November 19. After hypnosis with M.A. The attacks of fear begin to disappear, the mood is even, cheerful and good performance. Now - if only he could still walk down the street alone.”
"November 22. At ten o'clock in the evening M.A. got up, got dressed and went alone to the Leontyevs. He didn’t walk alone for six months.”
In letters to Vikenty Veresaev, also a doctor by profession (remember his “Notes of a Doctor”), Bulgakov admitted: “I have become sick, Vikenty Vikentyevich. I won’t list the symptoms, I’ll just say that business letters stopped responding. And there is often a poisonous thought - have I really completed my circle? The disease manifested itself with extremely unpleasant sensations of “the darkest anxiety,” “complete hopelessness, neurasthenic fears.”
Vikenty Veresaev
"Somatics" manifested itself in September 1939.
It was from that time that Bulgakov himself began counting his illness, which he told his wife, who wrote down his words in his diary on February 11, 1940 (a month before his death): “... for the first time in all five months of illness I am happy... I’m lying... in peace, you are with me... This is happiness...”.
In September 1939, after a serious stressful situation for him (a review from a writer who went on a business trip to work on a play about Stalin), Bulgakov decides to go on vacation to Leningrad. He writes a corresponding statement to the management of the Bolshoi Theater, where he worked as a consultant to the repertoire department. And on the very first day of his stay in Leningrad, walking with his wife along Nevsky Prospekt, Bulgakov suddenly felt that he could not distinguish the inscriptions on the signs.
A similar situation once already took place in Moscow - before his trip to Leningrad, which the writer told his sister, Elena Afanasyevna: “About the first noticeable loss of vision - for a moment (I was sitting, talking with one lady, and suddenly she seemed to be covered in a cloud - I stopped seeing her). I decided that it was an accident, my nerves were acting up, nervous fatigue.”.
Alarmed by a repeated episode of vision loss, the writer returns to the Astoria Hotel. The search for an ophthalmologist urgently begins, and on September 12, Bulgakov is examined by Leningrad professor N.I. Andogsky:
“Visual acuity: right eye – 0.5; left – 0.8. Phenomena of presbyopia. Phenomena of inflammation of the optic nerves in both eyes with the participation of the surrounding retina: in the left - slightly, in the right - more significantly. The vessels are significantly dilated and tortuous.
Glasses for classes: pr. + 2.75 D; a lion. +1.75 D.
Sol.calcii chlorati cristillisiti 5% -200.0. 1 tbsp. l. 3 times per
day.
09/12/1939. Prof. N.I. Andogsky, Volodarsky Ave.,
10, apt. 8".
The professor tells him: “Your case is bad.” Bulgakov, a doctor himself, understands that everything is even worse: at about 40 years old, this is how the disease began that took the life of his father in 1907. He returns from vacation ahead of schedule, September 15, 1939.
First - examinations by an ophthalmologist.
09/28/1939. Ophthalmologist: “Bilateral neuritis optici on the left eye is smaller without hemorrhages and white spots, on the right the phenomena are more pronounced: there are isolated hemorrhages and white spots V.OD approximately and without glasses about 0.2. V.OS is greater than 0.2. The field of view during manual examination is not expanded.
09/30/1939. “The study will be repeated with a study of visual acuity using tables. Leeches can be repeated. In the eyes twice a day Pilocarpine and Dionine.” Prof. Strakh.
09/30/1939. Repeated examination by the ophthalmologist: “Neuritis optici with hemorrhages.”
As you can see, the fundus revealed changes characteristic of severe arterial hypertension, the presence of which in Bulgakov was not mentioned anywhere in the available documents before the events unfolded. available materials. For the first time, we learn about the writer’s true blood pressure numbers only after the appearance of eye symptoms.
“09/20/1939. Polyclinic of the People's Commissariat of Health of the USSR (Gagarinsky Ave., 37). Bulgakov M.A. Blood pressure according to Korotkov Max. -205/ Minimum. 120 mm” The next day, September 21, 1939, there was a home visit from Dr. Zakharov, who from now on would be supervised by M.A. Bulgakov until his last days. A receipt order for the visit (12 rubles 50 kopecks) and a prescription for the purchase of 6 leeches (5 rubles 40 kopecks) were issued.
A little later, the blood test(s) gives very alarming results:
“Study No. 47445.46 of patient M.A. Bulgakov from 09/25/1939
The amount of residual nitrogen in the blood according to the Assel method is 81.6 mg% (normal is 20–40 mg%). The reaction to indican using the Gas method gave traces.
02.10.1939. The amount of residual nitrogen according to the Assel method is 64.8 mg% (the norm is 20–40 mg%). The indican reaction is negative.
09.10.1939. Residual nitrogen 43.2 mg% (normal – 20–40 mg%) indican – negative.”
The diagnosis becomes clear: chronic renal failure. Bulgakov puts it on himself too. In a letter dated 10.1939 to a Kyiv friend of his youth, Gshesinsky, Bulgakov himself voiced the nature of his illness: “Now it’s my turn, I have kidney disease, complicated by visual impairment. I lie there, deprived of the opportunity to read, write and see the light...” “Well, what can I tell you about? The left eye showed significant signs of improvement. Now, however, the flu has appeared on my way, but maybe it will go away without spoiling anything...”
Professor Miron Semenovich Vovsi, an authoritative clinician, one of the Kremlin’s consultants, who had experience in the field of kidney pathology, and the author of the subsequently published monograph “Diseases of the Urinary Organs,” who examined him in the same October, confirmed the diagnosis, and, saying goodbye, told the writer’s wife that gives him only three days to live. Bulgakov lived for another six months.
Mikhail Vovsi
Bulgakov's condition steadily deteriorated. Based on the existing selection of recipes, we can assume the presence of leading clinical symptoms and their dynamics. As before, analgesic drugs continued to be prescribed for headaches - most often in the form of a combination of pyramidon, phenacetin, caffeine, sometimes together with luminal. Injections of magnesium sulfate, leeching and bloodletting were the main means of treating arterial hypertension. So, in one of the entries in the diary of E.S. Bulgakova we find: “09.10.1939. Yesterday there was a big bloodletting - 780 g, strong headache. This afternoon is a little easier, but I have to take powders.”
The USSR Writers' Union takes, as far as possible, participation in the fate of its colleague. Bulgakov is visited at home by the chairman of the Writers’ Union, Alexander Fadeev, about which we find an entry in E.S.’s diaries: “October 18. Two interesting calls today. The first is from Fadeev that he will come to visit Misha tomorrow...” By decision of the Writers' Union, he is provided with financial assistance in the amount of 5,000
rub. In November 1939, at a meeting of the Union of Writers of the USSR, the issue of sending Bulgakov and his wife to the government sanatorium “Barvikha” was considered.
Alexander Fadeev
The very fact of sending a patient with severe, almost terminal renal failure to sanatorium treatment is somewhat surprising. It is possible that this was just a “merciful” action on the part of the authorities, voiced by the USSR SP in relation to the sick writer, as if as a sign of loyalty and care for him. After all, for a patient with chronic renal failure, a sanatorium is not the best
a suitable place to stay for treatment. In December 1939, three months before his death, Bulgakov did not belong to the category of “sanatorium patients.” That is why, at his request, supported by the Writers' Union, his wife went with him to the sanatorium.
The main method of treatment for Bulgakov there was carefully designed dietary measures, about which the writer writes from the sanatorium to his sister Elena Afanasyevna:
“Barvikha. 3.12.1939
Dear Lelya!
Here's some news about me. The left eye showed significant improvement. The right eye lags behind it, but is also trying to do something good... According to the doctors, it turns out that since there is improvement in the eyes, it means that there is an improvement in the kidney process. And if so, then I have hope that this time I will get away from the old lady with the scythe... Now the flu kept me a little in bed, but I had already started going out and was in the forest for walks. And much stronger... They treat me carefully and mainly with a specially selected and combined diet. Mainly vegetables of all types and fruits...”
In these lines, the writer still retains faith in the improvement of his condition and the opportunity to return to literary activity.
Unfortunately, the hopes pinned (if any at all) on the “sanatorium service” for the writer Bulgakov were not justified. Having returned from the Barvikha sanatorium in a depressed state, having felt virtually no improvement and realizing his tragic situation, Bulgakov wrote in December 1939 to his longtime medical friend Alexander Gdeshinsky in Kyiv:
“...well, I returned from the sanatorium. What’s wrong with me?.. If I tell you frankly and in confidence, I’m sick of the thought that I came back to die. This doesn’t suit me for one reason: it’s painful, boring and vulgar. As you know, there is one decent type of death - from a firearm, but, unfortunately, I don’t have one. Speaking more precisely about the disease: a clearly felt struggle between the signs of life and death takes place in me. In particular, on the side of life is improved vision. But enough about the disease! I can only add one thing: towards the end of my life I had to endure another disappointment - in general practitioners. I won’t call them murderers, that would be too cruel, but I will gladly call them performers, hacks and mediocrities. There are exceptions, of course, but how rare they are! And what can these exceptions help if, say, for ailments like mine, allopaths not only have no remedies, but sometimes they cannot recognize the ailment itself.
Time will pass, and our therapists will be laughed at like Moliere’s doctors. What has been said does not apply to surgeons, ophthalmologists, and dentists. To the best of doctors, Elena Sergeevna, too. But she can’t cope alone, so she accepted new faith and went to a homeopath. And most of all, may God help us all who are sick!<...>”.
The condition continued to worsen:
From the diary of E.S. Bulgakova: “January 24. Bad day. Misha has a constant headache. I took four enhanced powders - it didn’t help. Attacks of nausea. I called Uncle Misha - Pokrovsky (M.A. Bulgakov’s maternal uncle, doctor - L.D.) for tomorrow morning. And now – eleven o’clock in the evening – I called Zakharov. Having learned about Misha’s condition, he came out to us and will come in 20 minutes.”
02/03/1940. Bulgakov is advised by Professor Vladimir Nikitich Vinogradov, personal physician I.V. Stalin, who later almost died in the “Doctors’ Case.” Here are the recommendations of Prof. V.N. Vinogradova:
"1. Routine – going to bed at 12 o’clock at night.
2. Diet – dairy-vegetable.
3. Drink no more than 5 glasses per day.
4 Papaverine powders, etc. 3 times a day.
5. (to sister) Injections Myol/+Spasmol gj 1.0 each.
6. Daily foot baths with mustard 1 tbsp. l.,
10 pm.
7 At night, mixture with chloral hydrate, 11 hours
evenings.
8. Eye drops morning and evening.”
Vladimir Vinogradov
This is how patients with chronic renal failure were treated just three quarters of a century ago! The given recommendations reflect the ideas of doctors of that time about the management of patients with chronic renal failure, but today they have no more than historical interest.
Sergey Ermolinsky
ABOUT last days The dying writer was recalled by Bulgakov’s friend, director and screenwriter Sergei Ermolinsky:
“These were days of silent moral suffering. The words slowly died in him... The usual doses of sleeping pills stopped working.
And long recipes appeared, dotted with cabalistic Latinisms. According to these prescriptions, which exceeded all required standards, they stopped dispensing medicine to our envoys: poison. I had to go to the pharmacy myself to explain what was happening.<...>I went up into the hall and asked for the manager. He remembered Bulgakov, his thorough client, and, handing me the medicine, sadly shook his head.<...>Nothing could help anymore.
His entire body was poisoned... ...he became blind. When I leaned towards him, he felt my face with his hands and recognized me. He recognized Lena (Elena Sergeevna - L.D.) by her steps, as soon as she appeared
in the room. Bulgakov was lying on the bed naked, wearing only a loincloth (even the sheets hurt him), and suddenly asked me: “Do I look like Christ?..” His body was dry. He has lost a lot of weight...” (recorded 1964–1965).
His diaries, kept for 7 years, E.S. Bulgakov ends with the last breath of Mikhail Afanasyevich: “03/10/1940. 16 hours. Misha died."
To be continued.
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We described how Mikhail Bulgakov’s illness developed, which brought him to his grave on March 10, 1940, based on the wonderful article by L.I. Dvoretsky “The Illness and Death of the Master (about the illness of Mikhail Bulgakov)”, published in the April 2010 issue of the journal “Clinical Nephrology”.
Now we will try to explain the diagnosis of Mikhail Afanasyevich, which the author of the article gives him. In general, it must be said that diagnosing long-gone celebrities is a special medical game of the mind; in the USA they even hold conferences on this subject, where every year someone new is diagnosed. This year, as you probably diagnosed the heroine of the famous film “Christina’s World”.
But we digress.
Elena Bulgakova ends her diaries, kept for 7 years, with the last breath of Mikhail Afanasyevich: “03/10/1940. 16 hours. Misha died."
So it's over. Despite later alleged recollections of the results of the autopsy, it most likely did not exist.
It is appropriate here to quote the words of M.O. Chudakova ( “...his blood vessels were like those of a seventy-year-old man...”) and director Roman Viktyuk “...I remembered her (Elena Sergeevna) story about how Bulgakov was treated, it seems, for kidney problems, and when they opened it, it turned out that his heart was riddled with tiny holes...”.
But no information about the autopsy can be found, and most likely the causes of death indicated in the certificate are nephrosclerosis (replacement of renal tissue - parenchyma - connective tissue) and uremia - intoxication caused by the accumulation of metabolites in the blood that should have been excreted in the urine, a consequence renal failure were registered on the basis of a certificate from the clinic.
In a letter to the writer’s brother, Nikolai Afanasyevich, dated October 17, 1960, i.e. 20 years after the death of Mikhail Afanasyevich, E.S. Bulgakova reports: “...once a year (usually in the spring) I forced him to do all sorts of tests and x-rays. Everything gave good results, and the only thing that often tormented him was headaches, but he saved himself from them with the triad - caffeine, phenacetin, pyramidon. But in the fall of 1939, an illness suddenly fell upon him, he felt a sharp loss of vision (this was in Leningrad, where we went on vacation) ... ".
In her diaries, Elena Sergeevna often mentions Bulgakov’s headaches long before the first manifestations of kidney damage. 05/01/1934: “...yesterday Gorchakov and Nikitin had dinner with us... M.A. met them, lying in bed, he had a wild headache. But then he came to life and got up for dinner.”.
29.08.1934:“M.A. came back with a wild migraine (obviously, as always, Annushka was holding back her food), lay down with a heating pad on her head and occasionally inserted her word.”.
Apparently, during one of these (migraine?) attacks of headaches, Bulgakov was found at home by the chief administrator of the Art Theater F.N. Michalsky (the famous Philip Philipovich Tulumbasov from “Theatrical Novel”), who recalled: “...Mikhail Afanasyevich is reclining on the sofa. Legs in hot water, cold compresses on the head and heart. “Well, tell me!” I repeat the story several times about A.S.’s call. Enukidze, and about the festive mood in the theater. Having overcome himself, Mikhail Afanasyevich rises. After all, something needs to be done. “Let's go! Let's go! ".
In the archive collected by E.S. Bulgakova, there is a series of recipes documenting the purpose of the writer medicines(aspirin, pyramidon, phenacetin, codeine, caffeine), which was indicated in the prescription signature - “for headaches”. These prescriptions were prescribed with enviable regularity by the attending physician Zakharov, who also resorted to all sorts of tricks to “uninterruptedly” provide the unfortunate patient with these drugs.
One of his notes to M. Bulgakov’s wife can serve as confirmation: “Deeply respected. Elena Sergeevna. I prescribe aspirin, caffeine and codeine not together, but separately so that the pharmacy does not delay dispensing due to preparation. Give M.A. aspirin tablet, table. caffeine and tab. codeine. I go to bed late. Call me. Zakharov 04/26/1939”.
Bulgakov and his wife shortly before his death
Long-term use of analgesic drugs long before the onset of symptoms of kidney disease suggests their possible role in the development of renal pathology in M.A. Bulgakov.
Quite a decent version. Alas, only an autopsy and high-quality histology of the kidneys could confirm or refute it. But there was no autopsy (or his data did not make it into the archives), the Master was cremated and buried under a stone from the grave of Nikolai Gogol...
However, the abuse of painkillers could well have spurred the development of nephrosclerosis - the author of the article rightly notes this. By the way, he did not yet know that both biomarkers of nephrosclerosis and traces of morphine were
Mikhail Bulgakov was born on May 15, 1891 in a large family of professor of the Kyiv Theological Academy Afanasy and Varvara Mikhailovna Bulgakov. Mikhail was the eldest of seven children - he had four more sisters and two brothers.
Start
As Mikhail himself admitted, his youth was “carefree” in beautiful city on the Dnieper steeps, about the comfort of a noisy and warm native nest on Andreevsky Spusk, the shining prospects for a future free and wonderful life.
Mom raised her children with a “steady hand,” never doubting what was good and what was evil. The father passed on his hard work and love of learning to his children. In the Bulgakov family, “the authority of knowledge and contempt for ignorance” reigned.
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When Mikhail was 16 years old, his father died of kidney disease. Soon after this, Mikhail entered the medical faculty of Kyiv University. The arguments that influenced in favor of medicine were the independence of future activities and interest in the “human structure,” as well as the opportunity to help him.
While in his second year, Mikhail got married, against the wishes of his mother, he married young Tatyana Lappa, who had just graduated from high school.
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Field doctor
Mikhail was unable to complete his studies due to the outbreak of the First World War. In the spring of 1916, he voluntarily went to work in one of the Kyiv hospitals. As a military doctor, he had a rich combat background and considerable front-line experience. And in the fall of the same year, Bulgakov, already as a doctor, received his first appointment - to a small zemstvo hospital in the Smolensk province.
Morphist
Refusal to practice medicine
At the end of February 1919, Bulgakov was mobilized into the Ukrainian Army, and in August 1919 he already served as a military doctor in the Red Army. In October of the same year, Mikhail transferred to the Army Southern Russia, where he served as a doctor in a Cossack regiment and fought in the North Caucasus.
By the way, the fact that Bulgakov remained in Russia was only a consequence of a confluence of circumstances: he lay in typhoid fever when the White army and its sympathizers left the country.
Upon recovery, Mikhail Bulgakov left medicine and began collaborating with newspapers. One of his first journalistic articles is called “Future Prospects,” in which the author, who does not hide his commitment to the white idea, prophesies a long lag behind Russia from the West.
Later such works of his as “The Extraordinary Adventures of the Doctor”, “Notes on the Cuffs”, “Diaboliad”, “Fatal Eggs”, “Diaboliad” were published. dog's heart" and others.
At this time, he divorced his first wife Tatyana and married Lyubov Belozerskaya (the couple met in 1924 at an evening organized by the editors of "Nakanune" in honor of the writer Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy, they got married on April 30, 1925).
"Master and Margarita"
The writer's most famous novel, which brought him posthumous world fame, was dedicated to the writer's beloved Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya.
The novel was originally conceived as an apocryphal "gospel of the devil", and the future title characters were absent from the first editions of the text. Over the years, the original plan became more complex and transformed, incorporating the fate of the writer himself.
Later, the woman who became his third wife, Elena Shilovskaya, entered the novel. They met in 1929, and got married three years later - in 1932.
Mikhail Bulgakov builds "The Master and Margarita" as a "novel within a novel." Its action takes place in two times: in Moscow in the 1930s, where Satan appears to throw a traditional spring full moon ball, and in ancient city Yershalaim, in which the trial of the Roman procurator Pilate over the “wandering philosopher” Yeshua takes place. The modern and historical author of the novel about Pontius Pilate, the Master, connects both plots.
Last years
During the years 1929-1930, not a single play by Bulgakov was staged, not a single line of his appeared in print. The writer addressed a letter to Stalin with a request to allow him to leave the country or give him the opportunity to earn a living. After that he worked at the Moscow Art Theater and the Bolshoi Theater.
In 1939, Bulgakov worked on the libretto "Rachel", as well as on a play about Stalin ("Batum"). The play was approved by Stalin, but, contrary to the writer's expectations, it was banned from publication and production.
At this time, Bulgakov's health condition deteriorated sharply. Doctors diagnose him with hypertensive nephrosclerosis. The writer continues to use morphine, prescribed to him in 1924, to relieve pain symptoms.
Since February 1940, friends and relatives have been constantly on duty at Bulgakov’s bedside, and on March 10, 1940, he died.
Rumors spread throughout Moscow that the writer's illness was caused by his occult activities - having been carried away by all sorts of devilry, Bulgakov paid for it with his health, and his early death was a consequence of Bulgakov's relations with representatives of evil spirits.
Another version said that in the last years of his life Bulgakov again became addicted to drugs, and they drove him to the grave. The official cause of death of the writer was named hypertensive nephrosclerosis.
A civil memorial service for the writer took place on March 11 in the building of the Union of Soviet Writers. At his grave, at the request of his wife Bulgakova, a stone was installed, nicknamed “Golgotha,” which previously lay on the grave of Nikolai Gogol.
Mikhail Bulgakov almost accurately predicted the date of his death. Predicted when he was on his feet and looked quite healthy person. 7 months later he was gone. What is this - the premonition of a good writer or the experience of a good doctor?
“Keep in mind, I will die very hard.”
Doctors say that staying healthy in the life that Bulgakov lived is difficult in principle. Two wars, famine, typhoid and cholera epidemics. And heredity is heavy - Bulgakov’s father died from the same disease and at the same age as Mikhail Afanasyevich. However, the writer's brothers and sisters lived long lives.
Experts from the documentary series “Clinical Case” on the “Doctor” channel tried to answer the question of why the best doctors of that time did not help Mikhail Bulgakov and whether modern doctors could cure the writer.
“Keep in mind, I will die very hard, give me an oath that you will not send me to the hospital, and I will die in your arms,” Bulgakov told his wife in 1939. Elena Sergeevna fulfilled the request. The writer died at home, experiencing terrible pain - even the touch of clothes and blankets was excruciating. The diagnosis is nephrosclerosis, a progressive kidney disease complicated by arterial hypertension, that is, high blood pressure.
Serum sickness
The writer had kidney failure since childhood and, most likely, inherited it from his father. In 1916, Bulgakov received a doctor's diploma with honors in Kyiv. At first he worked as a military doctor at the front of the First World War, “sawing his legs,” since the most common soldier’s diagnosis at that time was gangrene.
Afterwards he was sent to the village of Nikolskoye as a zemstvo doctor, that is, a person who treats almost everything - a therapist, a surgeon and an obstetrician rolled into one.
Bulgakov would write his “Notes of a Young Doctor” about his work in Nikolskoye, including how he treated diphtheria croup in peasant children. Diphtheria - often fatal infectious disease, in which a thin film can block the airways. The croup prevents the patient from taking a breath and kills the patient, so in those years the doctor had to suction out the film with a special tube. With such a procedure, the doctor himself often fell ill - diphtheria is responsible for thousands of doctors who died while working.
Bulgakov was treating a child for croup and realized that he might have become infected. He decided to inject himself with anti-diphtheria serum. It was very different from the modern vaccine - yes, it more or less protected against infection, but it gave severe side effects and could cause serum sickness. This is exactly what happened to Bulgakov. His skin began to itch, his face became swollen, he could not walk, and was constantly in bed. My already not very strong health began to deteriorate. To ease the pain, Bulgakov wrote himself a prescription for morphine. The writer's first wife bought it in different pharmacies so as not to arouse suspicion, and Bulgakov injected himself with it twice a day. He was subsequently able to overcome his addiction to morphine, but not his addiction to painkillers. She may have led to his death.
Excruciating headaches
During Civil War The writer worked at the front again and suffered typhus there. Survived. Moved to Moscow. I worked there a lot and productively. Increasingly, the writer began to be tormented by unbearable headaches, which he later awarded to the hero of “The Master and Margarita” Pontius Pilate: “The procurator was like a stone, because he was afraid to shake his head with blazing hellish pain.
To somehow alleviate his condition, Bulgakov drank a lot of painkillers, 4 powders at a time. “One of the reasons why Bulgakov’s kidney disease progressed was the nephrotoxic effect of these drugs,” says Professor of Sechenov University Leonid Dvoretsky.
“Chronic kidney disease is a silent killer,” says nephrologist Mikhail Shvetsov about Bulgakov’s disease. “The patient does not experience any symptoms or deterioration of health for a very long time.”
But kidney failure often predisposes people to hypertension and strokes. The writer developed the most severe form - malignant arterial hypertension, which quickly causes complications in the eyes, heart and, again, kidneys.
In 1939, Bulgakov constantly joked about his death, said that he was writing his last play, living Last year and the apartment already “smells like a dead man.” However, his tests were quite good. The fact is that changes in the kidneys—nephrosclerosis—could be confirmed by ultrasound, which had not yet been invented. It will appear only in 2 years, and will enter into widespread practice even later.
And soon the writer became blind (his father also went blind before his death). Bulgakov, to whom Joseph Stalin had a special, albeit difficult, attitude; he was treated by the best doctors in the USSR, including personal physician of the Secretary General, Professor Vinogradov. The writer is sent to a sanatorium in Barvikha - to eat vegetables and breathe air. Vision returns, but the disease continues to progress. Bulgakov returned from the sanatorium disappointed in the therapists. As a doctor, he understood that the treatment did not work.