SICK AND WOUNDED
The recommendations of this conference were adopted by the
Central Committees of both unions. At Moscow, a joint committee
on sanatoriums and health resorts was created, which was charged
with the duty of putting the plan adopted into effect. It was found
necessary to open hospitals of two different types for tuberculosis
patients under the auspices of the provincial committees, as follows:
(1) sanatoriums for tuberculosis patients amenable to improvement
under ordinary sanatorium treatment and under climatic conditions
as they might exist locally; and (2) special hospitals, or
asylums, for the isolation of chronic and acute cases who could
not obtain adequate treatment and isolation at their homes.
Patients requiring treatment at spas were dealt with by a committee
in Moscow or by its branch attached to the Kharkov committee
of the Zemstvo Union. The Moscow committee was composed
of representatives of both unions, of the Army Medical Department,
and of the Red Cross Society. It took charge of all beds for
tuberculosis patients. The medical officers of the two unions would
prepare lists of tubercular patients needing treatment at health resorts
and forward the medical histories of such cases, written on special
forms, either to Moscow (for twenty-eight provinces) or to
Kharkov (thirteen provinces). The history of each case would be
carefully gone into by specialists, and the patients summoned by
the committee, examined, and sent on to their destination.
By August, 1915, the Moscow committee had at its disposal 2,241
tuberculosis beds, of which 1,129 were maintained by the Union of
Zemstvos and 1,112 by the Union of Towns. Of this number, 1,098
(715, Union of Zemstvos; and 883, Union of Towns) were in sanatoriums
at health resorts.®? The total, of course, was quite inadequate
and was being systematically enlarged by both unions, so that
by March, 1916, the Zemstvo Union alone already had at its disposal
3,391 beds for tuberculosis patients, including 1,162 beds in
the Crimea. 3?
125
Spas.
The problem of the organization of special hospitals for balneophysicotherapeutic
treatment arose in the Zemstvo Union as early
as the close of 1914. However, the whole problem of using Russian
32 Ibid., No. 21, pp. 12-27. 83 Ibid., Nos. 85-36, p. 97.
