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How to raise a healthy contented worm: parsing the 1910 manual


In general, I have long wanted to tell you about the silkworm

Steampunk with airships and aviation seemed to be a bright future in the Russian Empire. But the possibilities of ordinary materials were not enough. At this moment, we decided to turn to a biotech - specifically, a silkworm that can make nanowires of that time - silk.

There were already single trees and plantations in the country, but since 1720 silk was needed many times more. Peter I founded large plantations of mulberry trees. But in spite of all efforts, the worm often hurt with us, the sack and was generally capricious. Nevertheless, by the end of the eighteenth century, 20 silk and 70 semi-silk factories were working on local raw materials in Astrakhan.

In the USSR in pre-perestroika times, up to 900tons of cocoons per year. Then, gradually, silk was replaced by synthetic materials. But this is not about that.

Now I will teach you to grow a mulberry tree and raise a worm. In fact, I propose to read the instruction of 1885 - 1910 on the process. I promise she is beautiful just as exciting. On the way, we will meet Louis Pasteur with the wrong feat and other interesting people.

Well, of course, I scanned my copy and, having discussed with lawyers, I can say that the book is available for general use.

What is this book


Johann Bolle's guide was first released in 1885 in German. By the time my 1910 edition was published (according to the German version of 1908), it was already available in 12 languages. First we look at the cover:



As we see from the author and co-author, the worms were brought up at the agricultural chemical station in Hertz. More precisely - the Silk-breeding station at the Trent branch of the Tyrolean Agricultural Union. The co-author of the book is Franz Gvozdenovich, the inspector of this station, the author is the director of the station, judging by the next bookabout Japan, who carefully studied the eastern experience. He has something to share with the reader, because in the European climate the worm was sick and suffering. At first they thought that it was from the weather, but it turned out - from secondary phenomena such as diseases uncharacteristic for the native regions of the silkworm. As I said, we will also meet in the story of Pasteur, who, 20 years before the first edition of the book, saved an entire industry by understanding the microbiological nature of diseases. At this station, the biosafety procedures were perfected and tested to perfection.

The Russian edition does not look directly chic (which is not surprising, because it is a technical instruction), but as you read it becomes clear that they treated him with great love. The layout is very good for those years, and the schemes with the stages of the worm are so amazing.




The worm is right on a scale of 1: 1, you can attach it to the book and find out the stage of development.

The editor is also not a random person: Lev Bernardovich Bertenson , a good doctor and popularizer of science, graduated from the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg in 1872.

As the legal service prompted me, all this went into the public domain under Article 1282 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, since more than 70 years have passed since the death of the author of the translation, and the author and co-author of the book. Therefore, we can share it in the public domain. Accordingly, I scanned the publication (which was rather difficult to do without damaging, so in the middle there are sometimes frayed, but still readable sections, sorry) - and you can download it here: PDF, 110 Mb . The same book in physical form is in the libraryright here .

Who the hell is this silkworm?


Actually, this is a butterfly with such a cunning mug:



But no one gives the majority of silkworms this stage because their cocoon, which protects the larva, is made of silk, respectively. Which hardworking peasants want to take away from the unfortunate insect.

Therefore, you know silkworm as a worm. He looks exactly like the picture at the beginning of the post.

The cycle is:

  1. From somewhere, silkworm eggs (grena) are taken, which were laid by an adult healthy butterfly.
  2. Then this grena is stored for some time in some barn in order to synchronize the beginning of the cultivation of the worm with the receipt of the first leaves.
  3. Then comes the “revitalization of the grena,” that is, the incubation of the larvae.
  4. The next stage is the care of the worm larva so that this larva is happy to make a cocoon.

The worm grows from small to hefty for about a month. Then he winds on himself from 300 meters to one and a half kilometers of thread (different colors, but industrially bred from larvae with white thread) and tries to become a butterfly.


Stages, a picture from the book 1679 Maria Sibylla Merian, saved by Wikipedia

Actually, the end of the story, because all that remains is to take this very cocoon from the defenseless larva. Few selects survive this stage, degenerate into a butterfly and become new producers of grena.

But let's start reading!




From the introduction it follows that some of the drawings were made on the basis of “author’s photographs”.

Just in case, I remind you that in 1839, Daguerre transferred his method of obtaining a photographic image into the public domain. Until 1871, there was a stunning wet colloidal process that produced the first photorevolution (the second conditional one is a narrow film, the third digital photo). The process was called wet, because it was necessary to get a picture until the plate was dry. The photo hacker of those years, Nisefort Niepce, circumvented almost all the restrictions available then and even got the first shots of the panorama of the city by placing the laboratory in a basket of balloons. In 1871, dry plates appeared, and in 1887 already a film. That is, most likely, the shooting for the book was carried out on a dry glass plate. But in the photographs there was too much noise from unnecessary details, therefore Lev Bernardovich used them as TK for the artist,so that he removes everything unimportant from the frame and draws only the clarified truth.

Getting started. The goal of the whole action is to get hyper tissue . About hair already knew a lot since the Romans, who discovered that the most durable ropes can be made from braids. But that was not enough. After a long search for durable hair, I came across different types of cobwebs and insect strands in general. It is too difficult and troublesome to milk spiders, but a small silkworm can produce an incredible amount of useful thread for its size.

In order for the worm to reach production capacity, trees are needed where it will live. Mulberries. Actually, precisely because of this, my dear Astrakhan is all planted with these trees - they are also called a mulberry or mulberry. At the time the plot began, they were very well known in the East, and they made paper out of them. But for the worm you need a special tree. Mulberry is white and black (Morus alba and Morus nigra). White is better because it is easier to take root on different soils, and "silkworms prefer its foliage to any other food . " In Astrakhan, one and the other grows, which is strange, because the science-based worm is tastier, and therefore it will give the thread more efficiently. This is important for the cost of silk. Perhaps Johanne's calculations work for European regions, and other varieties were needed in our southern ones.



The leaves in the book are described as deliciously as in modern advertising tasters say that dog food has become even tastier.


On this farm in China, locals claimed that they feed the worms with leaves from their region (pictured) mixed with others from another region, because it works better.

Johann Bolle offers a technical and economic formula:

  • What soil a tree can take (immediately limits the choice of species).
  • How to propagate (seeds are best, because there are 4 varieties that propagate with sticks in the ground, and 2 more need to be grafted to another tree).
  • What is the size of the sheet (larger is cheaper to collect, but you will need to cut them later, because the perimeter of the sheet is important for the worm, and not its area).
  • — , « i , i ».

Biotech has long reached heights that make it possible to “ennoble” the tree with vaccinations, but in such trees the root system developed worse than seedlings. Next, we have the German comprehensive manual on fortification, rewritten in tree planting. A lot of attention is paid to the preparation of seedlings and the preparation of soil (horse manure with earth) for a sowing pit. Everything is very carefully chewed, and so clear that there is a feeling that even a senior developer or mid-manager who has never held a shovel will cope. This was important because in some passages of Johann you feel pain from the fact that not very smart peasants spoil the worm, trees and generally confuse everything that is possible. To the fact that we should not underestimate the predictability of stupidity, we will return. While fortification:



Then the tree costs three years. In the first year, we cut off the shoots on the trunk, so that later we get the right military mulberry - no branches below two meters. By the way, I found this standard rolling in Kazan on a grove in front of the administration building, when, for safety reasons, branches below two meters were cut from trees. The problem was that they were Christmas trees, and they were 220-240 centimeters. The result was a grove of brushes. But our task is not to ensure the visibility of the territory, but network engineering.

The fact is that by correctly cutting off the shoots that are unnecessary for the main task (getting a juicy tasty leaf), we redistribute the resources of the tree. These fractals should turn out like this:



After three years, you can collect leaves. Here's how to do it:



Collection tool - a special harpoon for pulling branches.



After collecting leaves, it is very important to cut off the excess branches on the trees. The use of materials is complete: the bark from these branches serves as “excellent binding material, and the wood itself as good fuel ... Foliage can be given to cattle as they look, or as silted, with an increase in the amount of salt”.

The following is a full-fledged tree threat model. Although mulberry is not very capricious (rather, vice versa), but almost every threat can spoil the taste of the leaf, and then the worm will cry. For example, the formation of hoarfrost on mulberry can be prevented by an “artificial cloud" - by blowing incredibly dense smoke from a fire with tar sawdust, wet straw and all kinds of garbage. After the hail, you need to properly clean the tree, redistributing resources to the most surviving branches - all the criteria are given so that the peasant does not confuse. If there is a scab - you just need to identify on time and clean up (it does not spread very quickly). But with wood rot more difficult. It happens from humidity and poor care: you need to inspect every tree on time. Root rot (“white sickness”, it is also a mold-like fungus Dematophora necatrix) is even more dangerous:according to the experience of the Caucasus, we know very well how it moves to a neighboring tree, and the trees are densely planted, so you just need to miss the moment - and the worm will suffer without its delicious leaves. Johann Bolle offers to monitor the traces of lesions on the leaves, and if the leaves are sick, immediately dig up the tree with the roots and burn it as quickly as possible in place, without dragging along the plantings. The pit is poured with a 3% solution of iron sulfate and does not touch (do not even fall asleep) a year. Biosafety methods have been practiced by civilization for centuries, so do not be surprised that such correct methods were used long before understanding what causes these plant diseases in general.Johann Bolle offers to monitor the traces of lesions on the leaves, and if the leaves are sick, immediately dig up the tree with the roots and burn it as quickly as possible in place, without dragging along the plantings. The pit is poured with a 3% solution of iron sulfate and does not touch (do not even fall asleep) a year. Biosafety methods have been practiced by civilization for centuries, so do not be surprised that such correct methods were used long before understanding what causes these plant diseases in general.Johann Bolle offers to monitor the traces of lesions on the leaves, and if the leaves are sick, immediately dig up the tree with the roots and burn it as quickly as possible in place, without dragging along the plantings. The pit is poured with a 3% solution of iron sulfate and does not touch (do not even fall asleep) a year. Biosafety methods have been practiced by civilization for centuries, so do not be surprised that such correct methods were used long before understanding what causes these plant diseases in general.that such correct methods were used long before understanding what causes these plant diseases in general.that such correct methods were used long before understanding what causes these plant diseases in general.



Well, a silkworm (aphid) is simply brushed off. Brushes are drawn in different forms, so that you can do according to the drawings. And here are the disinfectant recipes:


On the next page there is an even more interesting method: the station, at the time of writing, is examining a horseman fly that can kill tree parasites. Today, the same Encarsia are excellently used to combat other parasites, such as tobacco whiteflies.

Proper Silkworm Education


One butterfly gives 500-700 eggs. Grena production is one of the most high-tech operations on a silkworm farm, and one trained team could provide the whole region with eggs at once. Grena possessed the properties of cereals (but with a narrower permissible temperature range), so it could be carried quite far away. This gave rise to the whole industry of trade only to her and the secondary market. The silkworm usually bought quality grena in pieces of 25 or 30 grams (35 and 42 thousand eggs, respectively), and then laid it in storage until the leaves are ready.

When the kidneys are ready to bloom, the grena is placed in an incubator. At the bottom of his filter, which lets through the little worms, but does not pass the eggs. The incubator operates at a temperature of 13 degrees Reaumur.



Degree Reaumur - a sign of struggleInternet Explorer and Netscape Navigator Celsius, Fahrenheit, Reemer and other boys. Here is an article on Wiki, a picture from there:


Here is what happens when someone tries to come up with another convenient standard.

In the incubator, the grena gradually warms up to 25 Celsius and pecks. And at this moment Herr Johann begins to painfully switch to the protocols of degradation. Its station was located on the Austrian-Italian border, everything was done according to Hungarian recipes, plus the Germans were still learning. In general, the same peasants walked around, who were not interested in the optimal method of growing silkworms verified by science, but on collective farm DIY. It was impossible to ignore this, and therefore it is first described that the incubator, in general, is not necessary, you can do everything in rooms with a stove, and humidity can be controlled by spraying water on the floor. It is difficult and expensive to make such a shaitan device, the losses due to an error with temperature can be high, therefore it is written further - it is better to do it collectively with the help of many silkworms. Throw yourself on one shit - and all will be happy. But "each party belonging to an individual should be given special leave from the rest so that no misunderstandings and disputes arise."

We are here for science, therefore:“We must definitely abandon the usual thing that was accepted by the peasants: to revive the grena, holding it in the bosom, or close to the hearth, laying out in the warm stalls, or, finally, just putting it in the sun.” However, if you are a very poor peasant, Johann shares a life hack with a mattress and a bag. With pain, but shares.

How much to grow grena? Ohhh, this is a great separate question. Remember that the peasants did not know how to write and count? Well, a tree gives 30-40 kilograms of foliage, large ones may well give a hundred. Mathematics is for the elite, therefore, a separate profession appears - an appraiser, able to count foliage on trees and give a forecast on the number of revitalized grains. "Such experts have now appeared in many places, where they are engaged in sericulture at a larger size."

30 grams of grena eats as much as 10-12 "metrocenter" foliage. If I understand correctly, and we are talking about a metric centner, then 30 grams of eggs before incubation require 1.2 tons of leaves to feed (this is 30 trees). Minimum. Well, a room for 100 cubic meters (about 7x5x3 meters). The output is a maximum of 80 kilograms of cocoons. That is, one kilogram of cocoon - 12-14 kilograms of leaves.

So, we considered everything right, the hatch hatched and crawls through the filter onto a substrate on which lies a delicious juicy leaf. It creeps (more precisely, already worms), in fact, on the smell of a leaf. Before the discovery of this fact, the larvae were simply brushed off with a pen, which caused them innumerable sufferings. Then they are transferred to a worm water - a room with shelves for, in fact, education.



Arrangement of wormworms is devoted to another large section on fortification. More precisely, different types of stoves are considered with special love.



Dishes for worms must be disinfected. This was done in 1910 using an ultraviolet emitter. Pretty powerful. The dishes were washed with soda and exposed for several days in the sun. The walls and ceiling of the room were covered with lime. Here you can get acquainted with the ideas about bacilli at that time:



But since even after disinfection with UV rays one cannot be sure of anything, the good old sulfur fumigation was used. A huge lump of sulfur was taken, mixed with alcohol and burned. Smoke was kept indoors for 48 hours. If there is no sulfur, it doesn’t matter, a household method for producing chlorine is described. Newfangled formalin is also mentioned. But, of course, sulfur is more reliable. Chemical sequences are described roughly as good recipes for the kitchen. Do not repeat this at home and generally anywhere.

As a result, worms are placed on whatnots.



Worm nutrition is very interesting:


The worm clings its teeth to the edge of the leaf. Therefore, the leaves immediately crumble into strips just before feeding, so that they all can eat at the same time, for which a certain type of shredder (leaf cutter) is used. 8 times a day, you need to collect the leaves, bring them to the leaf cutter, chop, spread out and feed all the small ones.

Here are the stages of growing the worm:



Well, and here’s an awesome idea of ​​the worm’s breathing:



Then there is a huge section on how to treat the worm, but you already got the idea of ​​veterinary medicine on parasites, so skip it.


Roadmap parenting

In the next section, it’s time to wind up: educated give branches, they climb on them and curl. Full waving takes up to three days. Some wrap themselves in two, saving resources (judging by the mention that Japanese and Chinese breeds do this sometimes - most likely an evolutionary adaptation). Cocoon matures on the 8th day.

It used to be done in such things:



This is how it looks now in China:



Then they are heated to 100 degrees and then dried (yes, together with the larvae, and yes, then they are taken out, the Chinese eat these larvae, and you can also make fertilizers from them and traditional medicine).

These training samples are interesting:



The third grade is already scraps.

The fact is that cocoons are not silk yet, and they need to be unwound. But the transport state of the raw materials is precisely these very cocoons. They are sold like that, so this is part of the process, and it is here that quality control is done.



In parallel, the preparation of grains is described. And here is where our old friend Louis Pasteur enters the stage . I have already come across the opinion that he invented antibiotics. So no, they did not invent them, he came up with a vaccination and had this impressive experience:
“On May 31, the experiment culminated: the vaccinated animals received a lethal dose of anthrax bacilli along with a control group of unvaccinated 24 sheep, 4 cows and 1 goat. By that time, this experiment was widely publicized, with injections on May 31, at least 150 people were present. ”

This crown of his career, which gave the status of "immortal" in the ranks of the French Academy, happened in 1880, and by 1894 3.4 million sheep were already grafted in France. But in 1865, a certain Dumas (who is a chemist, not a writer) asked a young scientist how to save the French economy, in particular, suffering from a terrible epidemic (more precisely, demos are people, therefore epizootics) of pebrina. Here is an artistic description of this moment when a scientist tries to enter what they want from him:
« — . , , , , , , . . 1865 - , «». « » , .
— , , — . , , .
— , — . — -?
- Yes of course.
- What?
- Doll.
- How, doll?
Fabre is struck by the comic and seriousness of the situation, the courage of this man, who volunteered to fight completely unarmed. “Not knowing what a caterpillar, cocoon, pupa, metamorphosis is, Pasteur came to revive the silkworm.” And revives him!
After five years of hard work, seriously undermining his health, Pasteur offered his “cellulary drainage,” which silkworms still use today. ”

Well, a century later, the USSR learned this:
« 1940 « , , ». , 1940 , «» : « , , . , 32—34°, ». , . — , . , , , , , , . , « », , .»

So the hero of medicine at the same time put his hand to the silkworm. But they didn’t remember him for that, although the economic effect was tremendous.

The method itself was outrageously simple: butterflies were planted in small pieces of fabric. They waited for them to give out the grena, and then they nailed it with a pin to the fabric. It was rubbed and under a microscope it was checked whether there were pebrin spores inside the obtained slurry. If not, the grena was added to good.
“The trainers were also embarrassed by the need to get a microscope at their enterprises - a device that at that time was still connected with the notion of“ high ”science, inaccessible to a wide circle of people. According to Pasteur, he was forced to demonstrate to silkworms how his daughter, despite her young age, successfully copes with microscopic examination of butterflies. ”
Source



But in order to come to this method, it was necessary to understand what this pebrina is, why it is necessary to check not the worm, but also its genitive butterfly, and how the spread of this disease is generally possible. That is, to track the entire life cycle of a pathogen. Which, most likely, affected the fact that things went much faster with other pathogens later.

The result of education


Half a tree of leaves -> 15 kilograms of delicious succulent foliage and about 3 grams of greens -> 1 kilogram of raw cocoons -> 85-90 grams of unwound silk. You should have a tree plantation, an incubator, a barn or a box for grains, a room with racks for raising a worm, a workshop for freezing, boiling and unwinding.

This is what a modern factory looks like (more precisely, I shot it in China in 2015):






I note that a silk blanket (if it is real and mainly made of silk) is an irreplaceable thing, but it is done in layers, stretching many cocoons to the width of the blanket , but not on such a machine.

Now you know how the wild number of mulberries or mulberries grows in cities in many regions of our country. It remains only to say that one of the coolest travel stories in the world - the Silk Road - was just engaged in transportation, including, suddenly, silk. But about how it relates to the quarantine facilities of Ingushetia - in a different story. And now you can raise your worm.

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