Saving children's lives: the Ural provinces' experience in the late XIX - early XX centuries

The article deals with problems of the Ural society at the turn of the XIX and XX centuries concerning high in­fant mortality rate. The two Ural provinces, Perm and Vyatka regions, occupied the first places in Russia in terms of 132 Спасение жизни детей. infant mortality. The activities of Mikhail D. Van Puteren and Nikolay A. Russkih and the materials of the IX and X Congresses of the Perm Province Doctors analyzed in the article show the contribution of physicians to the fight for children's lives. The public also contributed to the solution of the problem when "The Union against Child Mortality in Russia" (and its branch in Yekaterinburg) and All-Russian "Patronage for Maternity and Childcare" were created. Physicians and the society both regarded summer nurseries in rural areas as a way to solve the problem. The authors provide statistics about the absence of deaths or a significant reduction of mortality in the nurseries. Special institu­tions, such as orphanages and child-care homes were organized for abandoned children and orphans. They combined temporary stay home and family patronage. The analysis of the Orenburg "House of Charity for the Foundlings" activities, the Ufa Zemstvo's initiatives, the founding and functioning of "The Upper Iset House of Orphans' Train­ing" is presented in the article as a proof that the introduction of new hygiene, sanitation, rational methods of feeding and infant care required enormous efforts of the fighters for children's lives.