Medical Statistics in Pre-Reform Russia: Intentions, Degree оf Reliability, Informative Value (original) (raw)

The authors explain the source peculiarity of medical statistics in Russia between the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries and identify the possibilities and limitations of its use for studying social history and the history of science. The features of the quantitative evidence at that time – them being fragmented, heterogeneous, and expressed in absolute numbers – prompted the authors to turn to the history of the organization of statistical studies in the Russian Empire. The estimation of information value and the discursive nature of health and morbidity statistics were performed based on the analysis of administrative documents (Polnoe Sobranie Zakonov – Complete Collection of Laws, ministerial prescriptions), accounts of medical administrations, uyezd doctors, and medical professors (military-historical and historical archives of Astrakhan, Moscow, Riga, and Vilnius). Based on the presumption that target setting, i. e. the purpose of quantitative indicators, d...