Periodization of the origins of Transbaikal’s health care system

Abstract

An attempt has been made to summarize the results of research into the emergence and establishment of the health care system in Transbaikal as a unified organizational and territorial structure. One of the system’s main goals was to provide the region’s population with accessible medical care. According to the author of the article, by overcoming the fragmentation inherent in previous research, it is possible to analyze and reorganize existing materials concerning the emergence, formation and development of the public health system in Transbaikal (from the 18th century to the end of the first quarter of the 20th century). The steps taken to provide medical care to the population on the outskirts of the Russian empire and the formation of the health care system there indicate that all the measures taken in this area followed the policy of the Russian pre-revolutionary government based on the need to solve priority tasks for the development and effective consolidation of the Transbaikal territory within the framework of the country’s unified political, economic and socio-cultural space. The results of objective data analysis, including from archival documents, suggest that the conditions and features of the medical system’s origins in Transbaikal were determined by trade, economic, demographic and military-strategic factors. Periodization, consisting of three stages, of the formation of the health care system in Transbaikal, is provided. The structure of historical and medical research allows us to identify the main trends and to set out each stage’s qualitative characteristics determining the integrity of the foundation process of the health care system in one of the border regions of Russia – Transbaikal.