The Medical College postpones all requests for retirement
March 24, 1769
In an effort to provide desperately needed medical staff for the armies deployed in the south against the Ottomans, requests for retirement or transfer by doctors and surgical staff are put off indefinitely.The Seven Years' War (1756-1763) exposed the weaknesses of Russia's medical infrastructure. Doctors, surgeons, and surgeon's mates were few in number, poorly paid, and exposed to worrisome mortality rates. In 1765 a reform of the military medical service promised improvements but brought few to fruition.
When 120,000 men marched south in 1769, they were accompanied by a grand total of 15 surgeons (plus an assortment of apothecaries and barbers). By early spring 1770, General Rumiantsev (First Army) and Peter Panin (Second Army) were demanding more medical staff for their disease-ridden troops. The imperial government had little choice but to hire doctors from German lands - paying them salaries much higher than those paid to Russian subjects - and promote its own medical trainees up the ranks, ready or not.
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