Preparation of medicinal plants by the pharmaceutical industry in the Kuibyshev Region during the Great Patriotic War

In the conditions of the Great Patriotic War, there was a problem of shortage of medicines, caused by the partial loss of pharmaceutical industry enterprises due to the occupation of large territories of the Soviet Union. In this situation the solution was the use of medicinal plants, which attracted attention in the 1920s and 1930s, but in the conditions of war it became much more important. The paper deals with the activities of the Main Pharmacy Department and the inter-regional office of the All-Union Trust for the procurement of medicinal plants for the cultivation, collection and procurement of plant raw materials used in medicine. The structure of the pharmaceutical industry of the region is analyzed and the ways of harvesting cultivated and wild medicinal plants are characterized. The authors analyze the dynamics of medicinal plants harvesting on the territory of the Kuibyshev Region using the documents of the Central State Archive of the Samara Region and the State Archive of the Russian Federation, as well as periodicals of the war years. The paper reveals the reasons for non-compliance with the planned indicators for the delivery of plant raw materials established by the government, as well as the measures taken by local authorities to correct this situation. The enthusiasm of the public – the help of schoolchildren, teachers and housewives – played a great role in increasing the volume of harvesting plants.