Education and Art in Soviet Russia/Document 14

DOCUMENT No. 14

School Sanitation Board

At the Congress of medical-sanitation held at Moscow, June 19, 1918, there was read and discussed at great length the report from the school-sanitation board attached to the Commissariat of Public Instruction. The Section is entrusted with safeguarding the children's health and the application of preventive measures in schools against tuberculosis and neurological diseases.

Hitherto in Russia little time was devoted to physical education of children and their hygienic conditions. At the present time the School Sanitation Board does the work of spreading physical education among children and of removal of conditions detrimental to students' health.. To accomplish this the Board has established an Institute of Physical Education in Russia, experimental institutions (settlements, schools of forestry, school-sanatoriums, ambulatories, etc.) and has been aiding labor organizations interested in the establishment of such institutions.

The following resolution of the School Sanitary Board was adopted:

1. The object of school sanitation within the boundaries of the Russian Soviet Republic is the safeguarding of the health of children of all ages, physical as well as mental, and a proper organization of physical education.

2. For the realization of this problem a central school-sanitation Soviet is established at the Commissariat of Public Instruction, representatives of proletarian organizations and large masses of the population participating in the work.

3. Likewise, similar school-sanitation Soviets are established in localities regulating and directing the local school-sanitation activity.

4. The directing organs in the matters of school sanitation are medical boards, elected by medical sanitary organizations such as the Soviet of Medical Boards' or the Commissariat of Health and medical Sanitary sections attached to the local Soviets of Workmen's Deputies and approved by the Commissariat of Public Instruction. All these organizations are working in close contact with the Central Commissariat of Health as well as with the Commissariat of Public Instruction and sections attached thereto.

5. A school physician is a permanent and competent member of the pedagogic Soviet and is actively engaged in school work. He is elected by the school-sanitary sub-section of the medical sanitary board and is approved by the Department of Public Instruction attached to the Soviet.

6. To safeguard the health of children and to render direct mental, moral and physical aid to children of imperfect health the school-sanitary sections (medical boards) establish special institutions: sanatoriums, schools of forestry for physically weak and sick children, auxiliary schools for underdeveloped children, auxiliary dispensaries, sanatoriums and agricultural settlements for exceptional forms of mental and physical deformity. School ambulatories are established for study, medical treatment and assigning children to proper institutions.