Medical Research Institutes during the Siege

Abstract

It is difficult to speak too highly of the work carried out by doctors and medical researchers under the hardest conditions of the siege. Their direct observations on the rise of nutritional dystrophy, its development and its effect on other illnesses are of great significance. Work was carried out in research institutes and clinics, by medical researchers and by doctors in civilian and military hospitals. Since it is impossible in a single chapter to cover all the research work of the medical profession in Leningrad during the war, this chapter will examine the main problems of the subject as they emerge from the materials of the research institutes. Their documentation (scientific papers, research and administrative reports) has been preserved, is accessible, and shows both the tasks that the profession was tackling and the conditions in which research was carried out.