According to the established opinion, in the Soviet and then Russian military units, the practice of intentional weakening of potency in young defenders of the Fatherland was also popular. This was done in order to ensure that all their thoughts were only about military service. We checked whether this is so.
Rumors about harmful practice have been going on for a long time. So, Ilya Ehrenburg in his political novel of 1941 "The Fall of Paris" He wrote:
“They said that the soldiers in coffee are mixed up so that they would not yearn for wives. And Zholio placed the purchases in his newspaper:
Gretchen, I'm at your home
Without bromine, without bromine, without bromine! .. "
Similar information is found in a later journalism And fiction. And not only in Russian. So, Paul Ferris devoted a chapter under the name "Brom in tea" of his work "Sex and British: History of the XX century".
How Writes The famous doctor and popularizer of science Karl Krushelnitsky, this bike is known around the world in different variations. In Poland, they say that coffee is subjected to processing, the French legend says that the wine is diluted with bromine. In the South African Republic, it is believed that the recruits add a mysterious substance called “Blue Stone” to food in order to calm them down, while in Germany there are rumors about the “double blow”: iodine goes to coffee, and soda in meat.
Krushelnitsky assumes that the following circumstance served as the basis for the emergence of a bromine bromine legend. In the XIX century Salt bromas (Bromides of potassium, lithium, calcium, sodium, strontium and ammonium) were used as sedatives for the treatment of everything - from light sleep disorders to full -scale epilepsy. A single dose was from one third to two grams. In particular, children from the highest layers of society secretly fed bromas salts to reduce their natural activity for their age. This was done through the child’s personal salt shaker at the table - the subject supposedly had to emphasize the respected status of the child, but in fact it was a way to implement the principle of “children should be visible, but not heard”.
In this regard, Krushelnitsky notes: if the salts of bromine are generally able to have some influence on a decrease in libido, then this will be only a side effect from their main use as a sedative. In other words, if the dose is sufficient, we will receive a sleepy soldier without any desire.
The words of Karl Krushelnitsky confirms and science historian Brian Klegg. He talks about an interesting episode. It turns out that the sedative properties of Bromide potassium were Open In 1857, Charles Lokok after he read about the temporary impotence of several men who accepted this substance. Lokok tried to apply bromine to treat hysteria seizures in women (then it was considered a purely female disease), and this was succeeded. Since then, potassium bromide has become one of the main sedatives over the century Means, and only in the 1970s he began to replace the phenobarbital. But relative to army practice, Klegg gives a more accurate place and the time of the emergence of the legend of bromine in tea: Great Britain, the years of the First World War.
As for the Soviet and Russian army, there are no data convincingly confirming such a practice. And sexologists and military psychologists unanimously assure: Similar is impossible and was not possible before. The fact that bromine in its pure form is poison with all possible consequences is undoubtedly. Well, various bromides are extremely undesirable to use people who require concentration, activity and who experience serious physical activity. Experts note that these same loads are the reason for a certain decrease in sexual desire. A similar situation, often encountered in the "civilian" life, forces the military to believe in the plausibility of the legend.
Thus, rumors about the addition of bromine to food in the army are nothing more than a bearded bike.
Photo: Army Standard magazine.
Not true
Read on the topic:
- Military Myth Puts Lead in Bromide's Pencil
- Who's Afraid of Bromine?
- Do they give bromine in the army?
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