DUSHANBE, October 8, 203, Asia-Plus – Tajik physicians have been invited to attend the 25th All-Russian Pirogov Congress of Physicians that will take place in Moscow from October 18-19.

The congress is expected to discuss issues related cooperation between medical communities of the CIS member nations, drug abuse problems, and holding the Eurasian medical forum “World without Drugs: Medical Recipe” in 2014.

The congress participants will include physicians of different specialties, nurses, teachers, known researchers, public and political figures and representatives of medical communities of the CIS nations.

The congress is supposed to call on presidents of the CIS nations to head the presidential patronage for the Eurasian medical forum “World without Drugs: Medical Recipe.”

The event is reportedly dedicated to the 130th anniversary of the Pirogov Movement of Physicians, and the 120th anniversary of Vrachebnaya Gazeta (Physician’s Newspaper) and the 20th anniversary of Russia’s Medical Association that has resumed the Pirogov Movement of Physicians and the All-Russian Pirogov Congresses of Physicians.

The Pirogov Congresses are congresses that were held by members of the N. I. Pirogov Memorial Society of Russian Physicians. The Pirogov Congresses were the most representative gatherings of prerevolutionary Russian physicians, bringing together for the first time representatives of all medical specialties. They were held regularly, approximately once every two years; a total of 12 regular congresses were held between 1885 and 1913.  In addition, three emergency congresses were held, one in 1905 (called the Cholera Congress), one in 1917 after the February Revolution, and one in 1919.  Two special Pirogov congresses were held, one in 1916, in connection with the war, and one in 1918, during which sharp differences of opinion were revealed among the members of the society with respect to Soviet power. The first Pirogov congresses were convened in response to an urgent need to coordinate social initiatives to develop medical care for the people and to organize a public health system in the country.  These early congresses were a typical manifestation of the public health movements of the time.  The congresses discussed the most timely social and medical problems of villages, cities, and industrial plants.

The Pirogov Congresses amassed a wealth of information on the development of medical science and practice in Russia.