750 
Pharmacy  in  the  Russian  Army. 
/Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
November,  1919. 
Russian  national  life.  Serfdom  was  abolished  and  national  service 
introduced.  In  1869  comprehensive  changes  were  carried  out,  and 
the  system  adopted  which  was  found  in  Russia  at  the  outbreak  of 
war,  and  which  has  continued  up  to,  and  since,  the  revolution.  Im- 
perial Russia  had  the  principle  of  universal  service,  but  certain 
classes  of  the  community,  including  doctors  and  apothecaries,  were 
exempt  from  service  with  the  Colors  in  peace-time.  Society  in 
Imperial  Russia  was  divided  into  some  fourteen  classes.  Each 
class  had  a  definite  position  in  the  general  community,  and  all  who 
were  government  servants  were  entitled  to  wear  a  uniform.  Rus- 
sian officers  of  combatant  services  were  the  dominant  class,  and  the 
term  ofitser  was  actually  reserved  to  them.  Officials  of  the  admin- 
istrative services  were  not  officers,  but  held  in  society  the  position 
accorded  to  their  relative  military  rank.  The  Russian  brack 
(surgeon)  or  farmatsevt  (pharmacist)  held  precisely  the  same  posi- 
tion in  the  Russian  army  as  that  occupied  by  surgeons  and  apothe- 
caries in  our  own  army  prior  to  1880.  They  had  medical  titles, 
and  relative — but  no  actual — military  rank  or  powers  of  command. 
The  Russian  Army  Medical  Service. 
In  Russia  the  Army  Medical  Service  includes  the  veterinary 
service,  and  not  only  are  medical  and  veterinary  stores  kept  in  the 
same  depots  but  an  actual  interchange  of  duties  was  permitted,  to 
some  extent,  between  veterinary  and  medical  personnel!  There  is 
not  a  special  medical  corps  as  in  our  own  and  most  Continental 
armies,  yet  Russian  war  establishments  before  the  war  provided 
for  3,200  medical  officers,  3,800  pharmacists,  and  over  52,000 
medical  rank  and  file.  Several  writers  on  the  Russo-Japanese  War, 
and  on  the  earlier  stages  of  the  Great  War,  commented  on  the  very 
generous  provision  of  Red  Cross  personnel  with  Russian  field 
armies,  yet  this  large  body  of  officers  and  men  had  not  even  a  dis- 
tinctive name  and  was  largely  composed  of  personnel  temporarily 
detached  from  combatant  units  and  other  branches  of  the  army. 
The  Russian  Medical  Service — if  we  can  use  the  term  "  Service  " 
for  such  a  heterogeneous  staff — was  composed  of  three  elements : 
(1)  Military  medical  personnel;  (2)  military  non-medical  person- 
nel; and  (3)  civilians. 
