Sergey D. Batoev
FSAEI HE I.M. Sechenov First MSMU MOH Russia (Sechenov University)
8 Trubetskaya St., building 2, Moscow 119991, Russia

The current continuing outflow of valuable production forces and intellectual resources from Transbaikal has a negative impact on the socio-economic development of this border area. A retrospective analysis of the health care system provided to the Russian population living in remote areas demonstrates that not all formative stages of the health care system in Transbaikal were completed without problems. The Russian Empire implemented a state policy on the demographic and socio-cultural integration of Transbaikal for the purpose of rational economic development, effective consolidation of the territory and provision of border security. The pre-revolutionary government, facing significant financial shortages and an unfavorable socio-economic and political situation from the mid 18th century, carried out continuous work to create the foundations for the Transbaikal public health system. However, social issues were not a priority with regard to all population groups living on the outskirts of the Russian Empire, therefore many projects and decisions were implemented with significant delays or in a reduced format. In addition, it is necessary to take into account an objective point restraining the introduction of the central authorities’ solution: a new type of medical care was being promoted, to which the indigenous and newly arrived people of Transbaikal had to grow accustomed. At the same time, by the beginning of the 20th century, the heterogeneous population of Transbaikal, which traditionally used folk methods as well as Tibetan medicine, gradually began to understand the advantages of official medicine and science-based hygiene for improving and preserving human potential, which is the basis of the physical and intellectual development of any nation, and to master their leading principles. From the beginning of November 1920, under the conditions found in the Far Eastern Republic, measures were taken for the first time to organize free and preventive medicine for all population groups on the territory of Transbaikal, which marked the beginning of positive changes in the sphere of health care in terms of ensuring the real availability of medical care. Thus, the long process if creating a treatment and prevention system in pre-revolutionary Transbaikal took place within the framework of the all-Russian model of state medical care. It was continuous in nature and had a number of significant differences from the health care system established in European Russia.

Keywords: history of medicine, history of health care, Transbaikal region, military hospital, rural medicine, Far Eastern Republic