Children's Health Maintenance Activities of the State and the Public Organizations in Ukraine at the Beginning of the 20th Century

The problem of development of healthy people requires analyzing and taking into consideration the theory and practice of health maintenance activities, implemented in various countries in different historical time. The article reveals children's health maintenance activities implemented by the Ukrainian state and the public organization during 1900-1917. Based on the archive materials, legislative documents of the studied period, scientific sources of university libraries, information of periodicals and original works of the scientists, memoirs and autobiographical literature, the authors have determined the reasons for children's poor health, named public organizations which were involved in medical and educational activities and specified the directions of their health maintenance activities. The reasons for children's poor health were weaknesses in organization of educational process at school, difficult living conditions in families, children's particular tendency to infectious diseases. The public organizations which provided health maintenance activities were societies of spread of literacy among people, Frebel societies, poor students' assistance societies, societies of care for homeless young orphans, physical education societies, the Society for the Promotion of Primary Education, the Ukrainian Society of School Education and charitable societies. The directions of health maintenance activities were providing hospital care for children, arrangement of children's institutions with educational materials and providing them with rationally-constructed furniture, carrying out children's medical examinations, inspections of classrooms, arrangement of school first-aid kits, conducting talks about health maintenance activities by teachers and doctors, organization of special classes at schools and shelters for shelters for children of refugees during holidays, creation of children's summer colonies. The results and difficulties which the state and public organizations faced with have been revealed.