The Cesarevitch Alexey Nikolayevich infirmary in the city of Orenburg in the years of the First World War

Abstract

In the article on the basis of archival documents the order of organization of medical aid to the wounded and the work of medical institutions during the First World War on the example of the infirmary named after Cesarevitch Alexei Nikolaevich for lower ranks, organized in February 1916 in the city of Orenburg (distribution of the wounded to medical institutions, reception and registration of them in the medical institution, the regime of the day for the wounded undergoing treatment, organization of meals, providing them with clothes during treatment and when discharged from the infirmary, selection of personnel to work in the infirmary) is presen ted. The fact of using natural factors of the Orenburg region in the treatment and rehabilitation of the wounded, which are widely used nowadays (mud baths, bathing in a salt lake, kumysol treatment) has been established. The participation of the society in helping wounded and sick soldiers is emphasized (organization of infirmaries, free attendance of cinematographs by wounded soldiers, teaching literacy to sick and wounded lower ranks on a free basis by teachers of Orenburg parochial schools, etc.). The difficulties arising with the lack of foodstuffs and provision of medical institutions with medicines, dressing materials, tools, as well as the ways of their solution proposed by the Supreme Head of the Sanitary and Evacuation Unit Prince Alexander Petrovich Oldenburgsky are described. The measures taken by agricultural schools and societies with the assistance of the Ministry of Agri culture to train persons maimed in the war in a new trade are outlined.