Репозиторий Университета

© Ivan M. Chizh, Igor V. Karpenko, Maria S. Sergeeva, Ilya V. Fedoseikin. The article covers a little-known episode from World War I, concerning the work of one of the foreign detachments (hospitals) in the Russian Tsarist army. The large-scale sanitary losses and epidemics of infectious diseases, which accompanied the war, required special efforts from the medical service of the Russian army. The Russian Red Cross Society (RRCS), which had monopoly rights to organize medical care during the war, did not cope with the problems that arose. In connection with this, the international community, primarily the medical personnel of neutral and allied states, in particular, England and America, played a big role in the provision of medical care to the wounded Russian army. The activities of foreign doctors, nurses and hospitals were carried out under the auspices of the RRCS in the framework of the humanitarian assistance that allies provided to Russia during World War I. Based on archival documents and materials from RRCS periodicals for 1914–1917, the activities of the medical unit of the North American United States in the Caucasian theater of military operations and the American hospital organized by it on the territory of Persia (the town of Khoy) are investigated. The materials under review single out a number of problems in the provision of medical assistance to the troops of the Caucasian Front, requiring special urgency and unprecedented work from the American specialists in Khoy. Throughout the period under review, anti-epidemic, clinical, evacuation and charitable activities predominated the detachment’s work. Doctors and nurses of the detachment risked their lives in performing their duties during typhus epidemics. It is noted that in addition to American doctors and nurses, Russian doctors and nurses worked at the hospital.

© AA Yaroshenko, NP Shok. The lessons learned from the last wars of the second half of the 19th to early 20th centuries influenced the organization of the troop command and control. The latest inventions, mass outbreaks of infectious diseases among the troops and the population of countries at war, as well as a number of other factors, led to changes in army management mechanisms. Given the experience gained from initial hostilities, the Russian government decided to review its approach to medical support for the field army and the organization of the medical supply system for troops. This was due to the unsatisfactory state of the Russian military-indus-trial complex at the beginning of World War I. At the beginning of the war, Russia was forced to seek help from France, Britain, the United States, and Japan, and to take urgent measures to expand its own production of medical equipment. Emergency measures were taken to facilitate the production of medical equipment on the territory of the Russian Empire. During the reign of Nicholas II, in June 1915, a Special council was set up. The council oversaw the activities of industrial enterprises that produced war supplies, distributed military orders between Russian and foreign factories and facilitated the opening of new ones. The Special council entrusted the provision of medical supplies for the Russian army to the Commission for the Revision of Sanitary and Medical Supply Standards, which was established on October 24, 1915. As a result of the work of the commission during the war, the medical support system for the troops was improved, production of domestic versions of medical equipment was established, the procedure for dispensing medical supplies was simplified, and standards were increased.