[net.books] Inside Russian Medicine

pector@ihuxw.UUCP (Scott W. Pector) (12/19/83)

This is from a followup article that I posted in net.politics:

Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Red AND Dead
References: <404@pucc-h>

And I'm glad that mine left Lithuania (paternal grandparents) in the
1890s and Poland (maternal grandparents) in the 1900s.  An interesting
book to read on the Soviet medical system (as well as a source on various
Soviet health statistics, i.e., the average Soviet woman can expect to
have 6, count 'em, SIX abortions in her lifetime) is called "Inside
Russian Medicine," which was written by an American doctor who was the
first American physician to travel with American trade shows in the
1970s.  He did so because one time an American in such a show had
appendicitis and died while being treated in a Soviet hospital.  Nobody
understood why that happened, and the State Department admitted that
they knew nothing about Soviet medical practice.  It was felt that it
would be better to have an American physician go along to see that things
were done right until they were certain about the Soviet medical system.
The book was published in 1981, I believe.

						Scott Pector