Features of Medical Support for River Transport of the Lower Volga Before and During the Battle of Stalingrad

Introduction. The effectiveness of the health protection of employees and passengers of the “Volgotanker,” “Reidtanker,” and Lower Volga Shipping Company directly affected the quality and volume of transportation during the most difficult period of the Great Patriotic War for the Lower Volga region. Methods and materials. The article analyzes the medical service activities of the Nizhnevolzhsky Vodzdravotdel (the Lower Volga Health Department) for these shipping companies on the basis of unpublished materials from the State Archive of the Astrakhan region, memoirs, newspapers, and literature. General scientific methods, as well as systematic methods, historical-genetic, comparative historical, and narrative methods, were used to reveal the topic. Analysis and results. The analysis of the work was carried out in three areas: the organization of healthcare, the fight against infectious diseases, and material and personnel issues. Conclusions were drawn about the wide branching structure of the medical organizations of the Nizhnevolzhsky Vodzdravotdel, from dairy kitchens to autonomous hospitals located throughout the basin, from Kamyshin to the Caspian Sea raid. The influence of the Battle of Stalingrad on the restructuring of this system was shown. An analysis of the work of the organization to combat infectious diseases and data on the scale of vaccination of workers and passengers were given. The tendency of falling morbidity on river transport in 1942 is indicated, and its causes are analyzed. The lack of medical personnel and the predominance of female labor in the Nizhnevolzhsky Vodzdravotdel are postulated. Conclusions are drawn about the value of the organization’s contribution to the work of water communication, despite the difficulties.