The basic stages in the development of scientific medical information in the USSR

The following is a brief historical survey of the origins and development of medical information service during the pre-revolutionary as well as during the Soviet times. Here are elucidated problems which are connected with the founding of a national health system of information service. Also, presented are data on the activity of the Vsesoiuznyĭ nauchno-issledovatel'skiĭ institut meditsinskoĭ i mediko-tekhnicheskoĭ informatsii Ministerstva zdravookhraneniia U.S.S.R.-tr. All-union scientific-research institute of medical and medico-technical information (VNIIMI) of the U.S.S.R. Ministry of Public Health-and about the measures taken to create a highly efficient national (public) health information service.