During the following centuries epidemic diseases and poverty, leprosy and syphilis, repeatedly imperiled all Russia, killed out large percentages of population, because of lack of medical treatment. In sixteenth century Ivan the Terrible (1533−1584) tried to bring in foreign physicians, as already had been tried by his forebear, who had authorized a German, Hans Schlitte, living in Moscow, to bring German creative and mechanics into Russia. Schlitte already selected more than one hundred German artists, physicians, operative surgeons, barber-surgeons, surgical assistants and druggists. But the Hanseatic League and the Livonian Order disgusted the way for bureaucratic reasons and most of the party were in prison. Eventually, only a few foreign