The First World War and the level of medical care in the cities of Western Siberia (1914-1917)

The article attempts for the first time to comprehensively analyze the impact of the First World War on the state of medical care in the rear of the large cities of Western Siberia in 1914-1917. The choice of research topic is not accidental: the majority of modern scientific articles is devoted to military medicine and care of the sick and wounded soldiers, and period of the First World War in the development of civil medicine practically does not stands out, and therefore, complete conclusions about how the war has affected on health care of citizens remaining in the rear were not made. The article consists of three parts. At the beginning of the article the author makes a brief historiographic review of pre-revolutionary, Soviet and contemporary literature on the subject, and gives substantiation of its relevance. Then the main part of the paper attempts to describe the epidemiological situation in the cities of Western Siberia in 1914-1917 and to highlight the causes of its deterioration. Finally, in the third part of the article the author discusses the steps of local authorities in the fight against infectious diseases and on the basis of the analysis and synthesis of information from archival sources and literature makes the conclusions. Firstly, the author concludes that in the first year of the war many epidemics of infectious diseases such as typhoid and typhus, measles, syphilis and widely spread dysentery swamped Siberian cities. Secondly, it is emphasized that the source of these diseases often were prisoners of war, refugees and soldiers of the Russian army. Thirdly, it is noted that the intended spaces for the local population in hospitals especially in the first years of the war were often occupied by aforecited social groups, because originally there were not enough hospitals. Fourthly, among the main causes of the unfavorable epidemiological situation were: lack of doctors, medicines and medical instruments due to the leaving personnel to the war and an end of import from enemy countries, unsanitary living conditions of internally displaced persons, malnutrition of patients, as well as under-funding of medical institutions. At the end, the author concludes that during the war medical care of cities such as Omsk, Tomsk, Barnaul and Novonikolayevsk was organized poorly. However, the author notes that the Siberian doctors and local authorities had taken many effective measures to combat infectious diseases and were able to prevent a large-scale epidemic. It should be noted that the issues discussed in the article allows partially fill the "white spots" in the history of the Siberian everyday life.

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