Silent witnesses of the feat of doctors of the Leningrad pediatric medical institute during the blockade

In the year of the 80^th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, we remember the feat of medical workers of besieged Leningrad – courageous, steadfast and brave people. In the history of wars, large cities did not withstand the siege, they either surrendered or died out due to epidemics. But Leningrad lived, worked, fought. And together with their hometown, the employees of the Leningrad Pediatric Medical Institute (LPMI) – doctors, nurses, lab technicians, orderlies worked in extreme conditions, and students continued their studies in cold classrooms without electricity, while many of them were in a state of alimentary dystrophy. In this article, we will turn to unique materials that are stored in the archive of the Department of Pathological Anatomy with a course of forensic medicine named after prof. D.D. Lokhova of the Saint Petersburg State Pediatric Medical University – protocols of pathological anatomical and forensic autopsies, set out in the journals of the “Clinical Hospital of the Leningrad State Pediatric Medical Institute” for the period from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944. The autopsy protocols are a chronicle of the terrible Leningrad blockade – the most severe, massive and long-term extreme situation that people have ever experienced in modern history. The result of the prosector’s work is always a formulated final diagnosis. During the difficult years of the blockade, when due to malnutrition, both quantitative and qualitative, hypothermia, fatigue and mental trauma, there was a change in the course of many, including dangerous diseases, a slowdown in regeneration processes in wounds, an atypical clinical picture of acute infections took place. The correctness of diagnostics allowed to prevent the spread of infections, to treat various diseases in conditions of alimentary dystrophy, avitaminosis. Particularly close attention of the prosectors was directed to identifying signs of especially dangerous infections.

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