Social Policy in the Russian Empire in the second half of the XIX – beginning of the XX centuries: on the Example of Healthcare System Function

The article researches the evolution of healthcare system in the Russian Empire, from its foundation and until the twentieth century.The fact is emphasized that the state concentrated the main financial and industrial resources on strengthening the army and an active foreign policy, while the social sphere, primarily medicine, was practically not funded.This caused fair criticism of contemporaries, including the great Russian scientist M.V. Lomonosov and other scholars and public figures.The zemstvo reform of 1864 gave a certain impetus to the transformations, but in the absence of a sufficient number of qualified medical personnel and stable funding, the changes were mostly not real, but formal, which led to the fact that medicine in the countryside existed essentially only on paper.Considering that, in terms of social structure, the country was predominantly an agrarian society, this meant a critical situation with medical care for the main part of the inhabitants of the state.Archival data testify to unusually high mortality, the spread of infectious and venereal diseases.The situation with medical care for the working population concentrated in large cities was a little better.It can be characterized as clearly insufficient and limited.As a result, not only the patients suffered, but also the doctors themselves, who physically and morally could not cope with such an incredible burden.