“The Blue Cross” and the prizing of ‘crippled and paralytic children’ in St. Petersburg at the end of the XIXth - beginning of the XXth century

The article is devoted to the characterization of the activities of public welfare institutions in St. Petersburg, created in the late XIX - early XX century by one of the largest charitable institutions of the capital - “Society for the Care of Poor and Sick Children” (“Blue Cross”). The relevance of the study is conditioned both by the increased attention to the health of modern children and adolescents and the demand for the experience of attracting the help of charitable organizations to solve the problems of socio-medical rehabilitation of young patients. Despite the importance and versatility of the organization, the study of its activities is just beginning, and the history of one of the largest projects of the society - the first center in the country to provide assistance to children suffering from serious disorders of the musculoskeletal system - is considered in this article for the first time. The study is based on the analysis of a variety of sources, a significant part of which is introduced into the scientific turnover for the first time. “The Society for the Care of Poor and Sick Children was founded in St. Petersburg in 1882. It was engaged in helping poor families to provide for and educate their children by distributing food and necessities, opening nurseries, canteens and asylums, sending weakened city children to the countryside. An important area of the society's activities was providing medical assistance to children and creating special social and medical institutions for sick children. “Blue Cross” became a pioneer in the rehabilitation of children suffering from severe orthopedic diseases - at the expense of the Society in 1890 was opened ‘Shelter of crippled and paralytic children’, where for the first time in Russia were developed methods of treatment and socialization of sick children, which allowed many of them to start working and get a chance for a decent life. Initially, the main task of the orphanage was social assistance: educating children in a religious and moral direction, providing them with elementary education, and teaching those able to work, available to them crafts. Health care included only “proper hygienic environment”, quality food, as well as massage and medical gymnastics. With the involvement of Professor G. I. Turner in the orphanage's gratuitous activities, conservative therapy was supplemented by surgical methods of correcting the physiological defects of the pets. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the institution had transformed from an organization that dealt mainly with pauperism into a center for medical rehabilitation of children with serious orthopedic disorders.