SICK AND WOUNDED 109
terrupted day and night watches at the hospitals, in the kitchens,
and supervised the diet of the patients. These women’s committees
also collected donations for their charges, supplied them with tobacco,
 writing paper, notebooks, and other stationery and, upon
discharge from the hospital, furnished them with underwear and
warm clothing. The ladies on duty would read books and papers to
the soldiers, write their letters to friends and relatives, arrange concerts
 for the convalescents, show motion pictures, and so on. The
zemstvos, for their own part, saw to it that the idle hours of the patients
 should be usefully occupied; those who wished could receive
instruction in various handicrafts and were enabled to attend lectures
 on general educational subjects. In some instances courses
were arranged for the convalescents. Thus, the provincial zemstvo
of Perm arranged in its hospitals regular courses of instruction in
agriculture suitable to the northern sections of the country, and
these courses, including regular discussions with expert agronomists,
proved highly successful among the wounded and sick soldiers, with
the result that the number of students quickly increased.
The cost of maintenance of a patient varied greatly according to
time and place. During the second year of the War, but more so
during the third, when there was a heavy depreciation of the ruble
currency coupled with increasing difficulties in the food supply, the
maintenance cost of the hospitals continually rose higher and higher,
Increasing by 50 to 75 per cent in some places, as compared with the
original cost. In its initial estimates submitted to the Government,
the Zemstvo Union allowed for modest but seemingly adequate
appropriations.
The Government undertook to defray the expense of maintaining
the sick and wounded in the zemstvo hospitals according to the following
 scale: for each occupied bed per day, 1.08 rubles (for food,
¥2 copecks; cooking the food, 2.67 copecks; heat, 4 copecks; light,
I copeck; medical supplies, 80 copecks; service, 28 copecks). The
cost of an unoccupied bed, per day, was set at 40 copecks.** During

*4 It is interesting to compare these estimates with the actual figures given
for the hospitals in the city of Vyazma, province of Smolensk, during the
first half of the campaign. We find here that the cost of treatment of a patient
 per day was: upkeep of buildings, 18.99 copecks (8.53 per cent of the
total expense); wages, salaries, food and quarters of staffs, 86.85 copecks