SICK AND WOUNDED

111

great importance. We find such details regarding various groups of
patients scattered through the reports of zemstvo hospitals.
The statistical bureau of the medical division of the Moscow provincial
 zemstvo board made a study of different groups of soldiers
undergoing treatment in the hospitals of Moscow province and
promptly published the results. These data were issued with reservations,
 and attention was called to the fact that other groups of patients
 might yield different results. Still, the publications were of
some benefit, as they stimulated the zemstvo physicians and surgeons
 to furnish in their reports uniform data. They also showed the
best methods of arranging these data, and they afforded some basis
for an organization of the work of the Zemstvo Union.
The first study of the zemstvo statistical bureau deals with conditions
 at the beginning of the War and covers 4.202 cases.

Injuries to the upper extremities [says the report] form 52.3 per
cent of all cases studied, while injuries to the lower extremities amount
to 28 per cent; altogether this class of injuries accounts for 80.3 per
cent. Next follow injuries to the skull, 5.8 per cent; the thorax, 4.2
per cent; the back, 4.8 per cent; the abdominal cavity, 1.4 per cent; the
neck, 0.7 per cent; genital organs, 0.2 per cent. Among the injuries to
the upper extremities the largest number (almost one-third) were found
in the wrists and fingers, making up 81.8 per cent of the total; in juries
to the shoulder and collarbone accounted for 8.8 per cent, and those of
the forearm for 6.7 per cent.

It should be noted here that in juries to the left side, both in the
upper and lower extremities. were found to predominate considerably.

Later (April, 1915), a similar investigation was made in 10,099
cases. On the whole, this confirmed the results of the first inquiry.
At the beginning of November, 1915, the Central Committee of
the Zemstvo Union opened a development for the relief of disabled
soldiers, which tried on broad lines to classify the fundamental
groups of the prospective beneficiaries according to the nature of
the relief that would be required, namely medical relief (artificial
1% Izvestia (Bulletin), No. 11, pp- 56-57.
® Ibid., No. 16, p. 51.