Contribution of the scientific community of the Imperial Tomsk University to the organization of psychiatric care and charity of the mentally ill on the materials of the section of psychiatry of the First congress of doctors of Tomsk province (1917)

The purpose of this article is to reconstruct the contribution of the scientific community of the Imperial Tomsk University to the development of psychiatric care for mentally ill people in Tomsk province. Analysis of the proposals and ideas put forward by the staff of the University during the work of the section of psychiatry of the first Congress of doctors of Tomsk province, as well as mechanisms for their implementation in the future. The object of study is the organization of psychiatric care in Siberia in the early twentieth century and the subject - the activities of the scientific community of Tomsk University in the section of psychiatry at the First Congress of doctors of Tomsk province. To solve this problem the authors analyzed participants' reports of the section of psychiatry. The authors identified the ide as and proposals on the modernization of the system of treatment of the mentally ill in the province of Tomsk, which were made in the reports of the participants of the Congress. Then these ideas and suggestions were converted into a single concept of development of psychiatry in the Tomsk province. In the final part of the study the authors examined the measures that have been proposed and embodied in the final resolution participants of the section. As the source base of the study should be noted, first, the documents stored in the State Archive of Tomsk region, which made it possible to reliably reflect the stages of development of the Siberian psychiatry. Second, the records of the First Congress of doctors of the Tomsk province, on the basis of which the ideas and suggestions that were later included in the proposed concept of development of the Siberian psychiatry were identified. Third, articles in the periodical press, which highlighted the attitude of the Siberian public to this phenomenon. In the course of the study, the authors came to the conclusion that, despite the fact that during the meetings of the section of psychiatry at the first Congress of doctors of Tomsk province the scientific community of the Imperial Tomsk University developed a certain vector of development of this field of medicine. However, the measures that were to facilitate the implementation of the plans, in conditions of revolution and then by the ensuing civil war could not be implemented. The authors note that if we consider the ideas of the section of psychiatry from the today standpoint, it is impossible not to note the scale of the planned reforms. From scratch it was planned to create three-level system of treatment of the mentally ill in the province of Tomsk, which then, if successful, could be extended to the entire territory of Siberia. Currently, many of the ideas that were put forward by the participants of the Congress in September, 1917, were implemented in the framework of the modern system of psychiatric treatment, for example, hydrotherapy, gymnastics, family care, etc.

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