Russian Red Cross Research Articles

Покровская (Новоладожская) община сельских сестер милосердия Российского общества Красного Креста на службе земской медицины в конце XIX – начале XX в.

Покровская (Новоладожская) община сельских сестер милосердия Российского общества Красного Креста на службе земской медицины в конце XIX – начале XX в.

Организация и деятельность этапного госпиталя Тобольского местного управления Российского общества Красного Креста в годы Русско-японской войны (1904-1905 гг.)

Организация и деятельность этапного госпиталя Тобольского местного управления Российского общества Красного Креста в годы Русско-японской войны (1904-1905 гг.)

ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТЬ РОССИЙСКОГО ОБЩЕСТВА КРАСНОГО КРЕСТА В ВООРУЖЕННЫХ КОНФЛИКТАХ (1867–1917 гг.)

ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТЬ РОССИЙСКОГО ОБЩЕСТВА КРАСНОГО КРЕСТА В ВООРУЖЕННЫХ КОНФЛИКТАХ (1867–1917 гг.)

Military medicine of imperial Russia in the World War I (1914–1917)

Relevance. Due to the military and political circumstances in Russia after 1917, the sanitary and statistical report on the First World War (1914-1918) was not compiled. Intention. To present the most important events and information, much less known to readers, concerning the professional activity of the medical service of the Russian army during the First World War. Methods. Archival documents and publications of leading experts in the organization and tactics of the army medical service were analyzed. Results and Discussion. Information is presented on the mobilization deployment of medical forces and equipment, their condition during the war, the size and structure of the sanitary losses of the troops (approximately 9 million 366,6 thousand people, including 3 million 730,3 thousand wounded and gas-poisoned and 5 million 571,1 thousand patients, of which 264,2 thousand were infectious patients), the working conditions of military medical units and institutions, medical units of the Russian Red Cross Society, other public organizations both in the army and on the home front. Particular attention is paid to improving the methods of rendering surgical care on the basis of their stage treatment proposed by Prof. V.A. Oppel in October 1915, as well as the Institution of front and army consultants created by Prof. ON. Velyaminov. There are sections on the organization of individual protection of personnel from the combat chemical agents, including the first insulating gas mask designed by N.D. Zelinsky, the protection of troops from the spread of infectious diseases, in particular typhoid and cholera, their specific prevention and mass vaccination. Problems of military medical supply are summarized. Some 40–50 % of all wounded and 62% of all patients were returned to the ranks via selfless efforts of physicians, i.e. about 42.4 % of the total number of wounded, sick and gas-poisoned. The total losses of medical personnel of the Russian army in the First World War amounted to 6,218 people, including 898 injured and poisoned, 4,472 patients with various diseases, and 848 dead. Conclusion. The information provided reveals the nature of the mobilization deployment, the medical forces and means of the active army, the stages of medical and medical evacuation of the wounded and sick, and sanitary losses.

Scotland at the Russian Front in the First World War: Robert Scotland Liddell, War Correspondent and Photographer, Red Cross Worker and Russian Officer

ABSTRACTIt is unlikely that one would encounter the name of Robert Scotland Liddell (1885–1972) in the list of eminent foreign correspondents covering the First World War in Russia for British newspapers and journals, but he deserves to be much better known both for the quality of the reports and photographs he sent from the Russian front for publication in the magazine The Sphere and for the trilogy of books that appeared in 1916–1917. Liddell began as an orderly attached to the Russian Red Cross in Poland in 1916 and after a period spent with Oliver Locker-Lampson’s British Armed Car Division on the Romanian front, he became an officer in a Russian divisional transport unit and narrowly escaped execution by mutinous troops after the October coup before escaping from Russia at the end of 1917. The article, while concentrating on Liddell’s reporting, experiences and exploits in Russia, attempts to survey his career from his early days as a Fleet Street journalist to the post-First World decades, when he wrote books of travel and novels, before sliding into obscurity.

Medical detachments activities during the 2nd battle of Geok Tepe

The article presents the organization of the preparation to the 2nd Battle of Geok Tepe (also known as Akhal-Teke military expedition). The Russian Red Cross active assistance is described in the context of the forthcoming expedition. Medical tactics in the surgical treatment of wounded soldiers on the part of military surgeons is reviewed based on the memoirs of the 2nd Battle of Geok Tepe surgeons N.A. Vel’yaminov and A. Keldysh. The article describes the activity of Russian Red Cross Society authorized I.P. Balashev and S. Shakhovskiy. Thus, chief authorized I.P. Balashev traveled through the battle area, which was occupied by Russian troops at that time, and having studied the local conditions, as well as having learnt the nature of the upcoming activities had made the general provisions on the Red Cross aid organization. The military-medical care organizational structure was developed quite reasonably. Nine defenses were all along the military road from Chikishlyar to Bami, that is over 320 versts. Intermediate hospitals for the sick were arranged in each of them. The article describes the activity of Sisters of Charity, who worked in military hospitals for the wounded weal during the 2nd Battle of Geok Tepe. In February 1881 the 2nd Battle of Geok Tepe campaign was completed. Russian troops and medical services got significant experience during the 2nd Battle of Geok Tepe in 1879-1881.

Из истории деятельности местных отделений Российского общества Красного Креста на территории Маньчжурии

Из истории деятельности местных отделений Российского общества Красного Креста на территории Маньчжурии

The history of the work of the Russian Red Cross Society's local branches in Manchuria

The history of the work of the Russian Red Cross Society's local branches in Manchuria

Sisters of Charity Training on the Latvian Territory in the 19th Century

<p><em>In 1772 Daugavpils(Dyneburg) was incorporated into the Russian Empire and remained the main city of the province of Daugavpils. In 1796 it was incorporated into Belarus province and later in 1802 into Vitebsk province. In 1864 16 countries joined officially the First Geneva Convention,,For the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field”. In 1867 Russia including Latvia also joined the Geneva Convention. That yearthe Russian association for wounded and sick soldiers care wasestablished. Over timethe Russian association for wounded and sick soldiers carechanged its original name. In 1879 it was given the new official name, the Russian Red Cross Society”.The Committeesof the Russian Red Cross were established in all the provincesof Russiangubernias, so in Vidzeme and Kurzeme they were in Riga and Jelgava, but Latgale was under the control of the Committee of Vitebskgubernia. The communities of the Red Cross charity of Mercywerefounded to prepare the female sanitary staff for the medical care of the sick and the wounded during the war and to provide nursing care in hospitals, military hospitals and private homes during peacetime. The Vitebsk local committee of the Russian Red Cross supported the activities of Charity Nurses Community in Vitebsk.</em></p><p> </p>

Chance will find a talented person: Philipp Jakob Karell

Many people of Estonian ethnicity have found their way out of poverty by chance. Chance will favour the ambitious and hard-working and give them an opportunity to realise their dreams. Several examples can be found among Estonian scientists and cultural figures as well. One of those was Philipp Jakob Karell.Philipp Jakob Karell, who came from of a family of peasant servants of an estate, graduated from the Medical Faculty of the University of Tartu in 1832 with the doctoral dissertation De rheumatismo uteri, and after graduation from the university, a piece of good luck gave the hard-working young man a chance to go to work in Saint Petersburg where, in 1849, he became the physician in ordinary to the Emperor’s family. He was the escort of Emperor Nicholas I on his travels both in Russia and abroad. Empress Alexandra Feodorovna was also Karell’s patient, and Alexander II also named him his physician in ordinary.On his first travel abroad, he learned the use of starch casts for the treatment of bone fractures from L. Seutin, chief surgeon of Brussels Saint Peter’s Hospital, and in 1837 started to use them himself in the hospital of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment.When the Dutch physician Baron C. Heurteloup visited Russia, Philipp Karell was his companion and operating assistant in both Saint Petersburg and Moscow. Ph. Karell summarized what he had learned during the operations in the article “Vollständige Beschreibung von Baron Heurteloups Lithotripsie und Lithokenose durch Percussion, nach dessen eigenen mündlichen Mittheilungen und Papieren”, noting among other things that non-physicians should also recognize the initial symptoms of stone diseases (nephrolithiasis, cholelithiasis).Karell’s method of milk therapy where skimmed milk had to be consumed after fixed time intervals, starting from 0.5–1.0 coffee cups 3–4 times a day and reaching two bottles a day on the second week, brought him international recognition. With the method of milk therapy, he achieved good results primarily in the treatment of diseases, connected with disturbances of water balance (cardiac, renal, gastrointestinal and liver diseases, and overweight).Ph. Karell was also active in the foundation of the Russian Red Cross Society, participated in drafting of its statutes and belonged to its committee. He was also among the founders of the Russian Society of Surgery. On Karell’s initiative, sanitary companies were created in the Russian Army.Although he worked in the Emperor’s court, Ph. Karell always remained an Estonian and repeatedly helped to acquire money from the Emperor for Estonian undertakings. He helped to publish the Estonian national epic Kalevipoeg (Son of Kalev) and always valued his friendship with F.R. Kreutzwald and N. Pirogov, which had started during his university days.

Figures of Infinity: Two Poems by Maurice Craig

Maurice James Craig (1919–2011) is widely known as an architectural historian and biographer: those encountering his writing today may not even be aware that he was a poet of repute during his twenties, one expected to become a major figure on the Irish poetry scene. His poetry and reviews appeared regularly in both British and Irish literary periodicals in the nineteen forties, yet he published just one full-length collection, Some Way for Reason, with Heinemann in London in 1948. In 2011 Liberties Press published a new selection of Craig's poetry; this included poems from the Heinemann volume together with work that had previously appeared in journals or anthologies only. Since that publication, other previously uncollected poems have come to light, two of which are printed here. These poems first appeared, along with work by John Hewitt and W.R. Rodgers among others, in a pamphlet printed in Belfast in 1942 – 15 Poems in Aid of the Russian Red Cross. In my introduction to these poems I examine this publication and its contributors, and situate Craig's poems in the context of the Second World War and of his developing themes of personal responsibility and cultural dissolution.

Toward a Central Database of Evacuated Soviet Jews' Names, for the Study of the Holocaust in the Occupied Soviet Territories

Previously unknown data from central Russian archives show that Soviet, post-Soviet, and Western historians have substantially overestimated the number of Soviet citizens evacuated in 1941 and 1942. This research note advocates a central database of evacuated Soviet Jews' names, including social and demographic information on each. The author suggests as its basis name lists and card catalogues from central and regional archives in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and other republics of the former USSR, as well as from the Tracing and Information Center of the Russian Red Cross. The database would afford more precise information on the numbers of refugees from, and victims of, the Holocaust in the occupied Soviet territories, improve possibilities for the sociological and demographic study of both groups, and help ascertain heretofore unknown names of Soviet Jews martyred by the Nazis and their allies. The database would serve such pragmatic purposes as genealogical research and compensation cases of the Claims Conference.

The secret city

Hugh Walpole, among the most popular and prolific of English authors in the first four decades of the twentieth century, is now largely forgotten and unread. There are, however, many aspects of his life and work that retain considerable interest and invite re-visiting. This article is essentially devoted to the period of some three years between September 1914 and November 1917 that brought Walpole his firsthand knowledge of a Russia torn by war and revolution and provided the material for two of his more important novels. The first part of the article looks at Walpole’s knowledge of Russian literature and at his activities in Russia as a journalist, then as a serving officer with the Russian Red Cross and, finally, as the Head of British Propaganda in Petrograd. The second section examines, firstly, The Dark Forest (1916), a novel arising from Walpole’s experiences at the Carpathian front, and then The Secret City (1919), his contribution to the ‘Petersburg myth’.

The Classic

Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogoff (Fig. 1) was one of the greatest surgeons of the 19th Century. He is not well known in the English-speaking world since his contributions to the surgical literature were written in Latin, Russian, French, and German and have not been translated into English. His eponym is attached to an osteoplastic amputation of the foot in which the heel pad is affixed to the distal tibia utilizing a portion of the os calcis to form an end-bearing stump. In Russia, he had an enormous influence on medical practice and education. Pirogoff was born in Moscow, the 13th child in his family. After a private primary education, he was admitted to the University of Moscow to study medicine. Then, as now, universities were centers of liberalism and opposition to conservative governments. It was during his student days that Pirogoff developed a progressive point of view. The standard of medical education at the University of Moscow at that time was very poor. After graduation, he was selected for further training at the University of Dorpat in Estonia where the teachers were mostly German. He stayed there for five years and during these years he studied anatomy and experimental surgery. He then had the opportunity to study for two additional years in Berlin and Gottingen. Upon his return to Russia in 1835, Pirogoff hoped for an appointment as Professor of surgery at the University of Moscow but was forced to accept a similar but less prestigious position at Dorpat. He stayed in this position for five years with only a leave of five months for study in Paris in the clinic of Velpeau. In 1840, he became Professor of Surgery at the Medico-Chirurgical Academy in St. Petersburg. During the next few years, he established a reputation as the leading surgeon in the community as well as an outstanding teacher. With a mind always open to new ideas, he was one of the earliest European surgeons to adopt the use of ether anesthesia. In 1847, he described the administration of ether per rectum to produce anesthesia. During the war in the Crimea, Pirogoff was made the Surgeon General in charge of the medical establishment in Sevastopol. With the help of the Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, he was able to introduce female nurses into the military hospitals at the same time Florence Nightingale was doing so in the British military hospitals. The collaboration of Pirogoff and the Grand Duchess laid the groundwork for the establishment of the Russian Red Cross. Pirogov was the first surgeon to use plaster of paris dressings for the treatment of fractures in the treatment of war casualties. On the basis of his experience, he believed that open fractures should be immobilized in plaster of pans dressings as quickly as possible and before evacuation to the field hospitals. The results of his work in the Crimea were incorporated in his book, Principles of General Military Field Surgery. The period immediately after the Crimean war was one of frantic activity. During this period, Pirogoff published the description of his osteoplastic amputation (1854), a three-volume book on clinical surgery (1851–54), and his important atlas of cross-sectional anatomy (1852–1859). This latter work, based on sections taken through frozen cadavers, was introduced as a teaching tool. It opened a new approach to the visualization of anatomic relationships and was widely adopted. Cross-sectional anatomy participated in the general decline of interest in gross anatomy on medical school cumcula, but the introduction of computed tomography and nuclear magnetic resonance scans has revived interest in this aspect of gross anatomy. In 1856, tired of the political battles and intrigues of the medical school, Pirogoff resigned his position and became the Inspector of Education of Southern Russia. In this role, he traveled extensively and made a valiant effort to improve the educational system under his direction. Retiring five years later, he spent the next five years living in Berlin and Heidelberg. Upon returning to Russia, his liberal, western views were out of step with the trend toward conservatism following the assassination of Alexander 11, and he retired. He died of a cancer of the mouth.

Gleb Anrep, 1891-1955

Gleb (Vassilievitch von) Anrep was descended from a famous Westphalian family with a proud history of high military distinction which can be traced back to the tenth century. Field Marshal von Anrep was leader of the Livonian Order of Knights who built an outpost of Christianity on the shores of the Baltic. General von Anrep came to St Petersburg at the invitation of Peter the Great and founded the Russian branch of the family in the eighteenth century. Professor Vassili (Basil) von Anrep (1854-1925) was the first member of this family to prefer science to arms. He was born in St Petersburg and studied law in the university there for a year, but he soon tired of academic legal arguments and entered the Medical Academy where he was a brilliant student. He spent two years studying pharmacology in Leipzig, where he described the local anaesthetic action of cocaine and recommended its use in medicine four years before its introduction by Roller. He returned to Russia to be professor of pharmacology, first in Kharkov and then in the Medical Academy in St Petersburg. At the invitation of Prince Oldenburgski he founded the Institute of Experimental Medicine and directed it for several years. At the command of the Emperor he then founded a medical institute for women doctors, which was needed because Moslem women refused to be treated by men. His public duties interfered with his researches and eventually he devoted himself entirely to the reform of education. He held high administrative posts in connexion not only with medicine but also with education in general, and nearly succeeded in introducing compulsory education for all Russians. In the first world war he was at the head of the Russian Red Cross. At the outbreak of the revolution he was thrown into prison, but was released after six months and since the family had come from the Baltic he managed to obtain a Latvian passport. He arrived in London in 1919, stayed with his younger son Gleb for a few years and then left for Paris, where he died in 1925.

Latvian Ministry for Home Affairs v. Former Russian Red Cross Association.

458International Red Gross — National Branches — Position of — Russian Red Cross.