Discovery of the health benefits of Chaga tea
Why did Russian peasants never get cancer? Trying to save money on tea, they drank the chaga brew instead. They picked it from birch trees, ground it, and then brewed it.
The chaga mushroom is considered one of the most popular alternative drinks to prevent cancer and in some cases help treat it.
How Chaga Tea Was Discovered
Sergey N. Maslennikov, Russian doctor, remembered by the local population, many years after his death, was born on June 21, 1887 in a poor family of the merchant Nikita Maslennikov. Nikita Konstantinovich served as the main manager of the merchant Obrezkova, later becoming a co-owner of a wine store. He was kind and gentle, and he loved children. One of her granddaughters recalled that she allowed them to braid their beards into pigtails when they were little. His wife Elikanida Mikhailovna, unlike her husband, was a stern, practical and down-to-earth woman. She had been saving berries from her large garden for a jam that was sold at the store.
In 1908 Sergey graduated from the Moscow University Medical Faculty, then worked at Aleksandrov at the Zemstvo hospital. In October 1910 he married Maria Mikhailovna Sokolova. He was born in St. Petersburg in the family of the librarian of the Tauride Palace. After the death of his parents, he lived with his relatives Dobronravov. Elikanida Mikhaylovna believed that the orphan bride Masha Sokolova was not a good match for her son, but he insisted on marriage. In 1912 they had a daughter, Catherine, in 1913, Maria.
In 1914-1918, Sergey Maslennikov served in the 197 Infantry Regiment 6-th Siberian Division, in 1916, he worked in a hospital in Nizhniy Novgorod. From 1924 to 1935 he traveled all over the country: he worked in Tashkazenskom county in Syrdarya province, then in Sakhalin, in Blagoveshchensk in Kara-Bugaz. In 1935 he returned to Alexandrov. From 1941 he served in the hospital, then as a doctor in the Alexander Sanitation Centers.
Sergey was a talented man, very hardworking. He compiled many recipes that are still consumed by the residents of the city for the treatment of sore throats, colds… He was also a doctor-researcher.
The main achievement of his life – a discovery, as stated in the “description of the invention”, “symptomatic tool to facilitate the condition of cancer patients.”
Solzhenitsyn, one of Maslennikov’s “pencil patients”, tells this in the novel “Cancer Ward”:
“Friends! It’s an incredible story. It was told to me by a patient who came here for a check-up, when I was still waiting to be admitted here. So, without taking any chances, I wrote a postcard with the address of the hospital. And now the answer already! Twelve days have passed, and the answer. And Dr. Maslennikov even apologized to me for the delay, because it turned out that he had to answer an average of ten letters a day. And less than half an hour is not enough to a good letter. So for five hours a day, someone was writing letters! And he doesn’t earn anything for it!… And he doesn’t have staff, assistants, secretaries. All of that – when he’s off duty. there is glory for his work! For us, sick patients, the doctor is like a ferryman: we need him for an hour, and then we don’t know him. He will cure, throw away the cards. At the end of the letter, he complains that patients , especially someone you helped, stop writing to you. They do not write e about the dosages taken and the results. And he also asked me, he begged me to answer thoughtfully!
… a former patient told me about Dr. Maslennikov (a former country doctor from Alexander County, near Moscow). He has stayed there for decades, ever since he got there, treated at the same hospital. And then he realized that although the medical literature was writing more and more about cancer, he had no cancer patients among the peasants. Why was this? …
He began to study… and found this phenomenon: that in order to save money on tea, men throughout this area do not brew tea, but rather chaga, also known as birch fungus. … Then Sergey N. Maslennikov thought: is not that chaga with which Russian peasants have been treated for cancer for centuries, without knowing it?
But obviously, this was not enough. We had to review everything. We had many, many years yet to observe those who drink this homemade tea and those who don’t. This meant giving this drink to those who have a tumor and taking responsibility for not treating them by other means. Then guess at what temperature to brew, and in what dosage, to boil or not to boil, and how many glasses to drink, without harm. Then look at which tumors it affects and which it affects less.”
Solzhenitsyn experienced the healing effect of mushrooms, as well as thousands of other people. Many of which Sergey N. saved.
His notebooks with records of the results of his treatments are worth reading. There are frequent records of complete recovery. But for a long time this method of treatment was not recognized. She had to see patients in secret, not at work or at home. Only in 1950, after many years of research and observation, Sergey N. applied to the Ministry of Health for the invention of him. The copyright was obtained in 1958, eight years later.
Like all talented people, Dr. Maslenikov was a versatile man, fond of many things, including hunting and gardening. He also went all over Alexandrov with a camera, filming every corner. Many photos of Sergiev Posad were preserved in the cities of southern Russia.
And recently, in 2001, in the Japanese pharmaceutical company became interested in the invention of Dr. Aleksandrov. Following Sergei Nikitich, his representatives came to his museum, and then in Japan they published a magazine dedicated to doctor Maslennikov and chaga.
This information was provided by the museum of Anastasia and Marina Tsvetaeva.