WORK OF THE UNION
ment for the institutions maintained by the Zemstvo Union, and
14,151,970 rubles worth of drugs, to be bought in the Russian and
foreign markets.”
By this time, the Zemstvo Union had opened two factories of its
own at Moscow for the manufacture of drugs. One of them, which
employed seven hundred hands representing twelve different
workers’ guilds, produced 4,000,000 rubles worth of goods a year
at prices 15 to 40 per cent lower than the market prices. Another
chemical work, converted from a brewery bought by the zemstvo,
began to function in July, 1916. Expanding gradually and in-
creasing its output under the management of the best chemists
available, this plant was able by July, 1917, to manufacture 800,-
000 rubles worth of goods every month.
The scarcity of medical supplies during the War was so acute
that many of the zemstvos were unable to dispense with the assist-
ance of the Union not only for the war hospitals but even for their
regular peace-time hospitals. How extensively this help was given to
them will become apparent from the fact that by 1916 more than
three-quarters of all the zemstvos were receiving their medical goods
from the Central Committee of the Union.
This experience stimulated many of the zemstvo boards to con-
template the maintenance of zemstvo associations for the common
purchase of medical supplies also in peace time. On June 10-12,
1916, a number of conferences were held by the Central Committee
of the Zemstvo Union to discuss this subject, and were attended by
150 representatives from the provinces. As such an undertaking re-
quired, however, formal resolutions of the zemstvo assemblies, it was
impossible to carry out the plan before the Revolution.
Evacuation of Wounded and Sick Soldiers.
Large masses of sick and wounded soldiers had been passing
through the important railway junctions from the very first day of
the War. In the overwhelming majority of cases these men were
traveling from the front under very bad conditions. The evacuation
authorities of the Ministry of War had at their disposal about
twenty magnificent hospital trains, each of them having cost hun-
? Izvestia (Bulletin) of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Union
of Zemstvos, Moscow, 1917, Nos. 54-55, p. 185.
