Lithuanian Sanitary Aid Society

At the time, two Lithuanian physicians husband Danielius Alseika and wife Veronika Alseikienė worked at a war hospital which was not evacuated to Russia.

Through Alseikienė's acquaintance from the university, German officer Werner Miller, the society obtained permission to provide sanitary inspections and vaccinations to numerous war refugees who traveled through Minsk attempting to return from Russia.

Due to outbreaks of infectious diseases, the refugees needed to obtain a sanitary inspection certificate to avoid quarantine.

[1] The Lithuanian Sanitary Aid Society, which at the time had 36 members, opened a hospital on the present-day Vilnius Street in November 1918.

At the time, the hospital employed six university-educated doctors: Danielius Alseika (ear, nose, and throat specialist), Veronika Alseikienė (ophthalmologist), Julija Biliūnienė (dentist), Vladas Kairiūkštis (internist), Alexander Helmut Otto Hagentorn (surgeon), and P. Ratomski (gynecologist).

[7] The society also published popular booklets on common diseases and their prevention (e.g. about trachoma and tuberculosis in 1936), organized lectures, and other events.

[3] Due to financial difficulties, intrigues, and disagreements, Veronika Alseikienė moved to Kaunas in independent Lithuania in 1932.

[3] In 1933, he stepped down as director of the hospital and was replaced by Vytautas Legeika but continued to chair the Lithuanian Sanitary Aid Society.

[8] In May 1936, Alseika died due to chronic radiation syndrome caused by insufficient shielding of x-ray machines.

[8] Despite financial difficulties and the global Great Depression, the society decided to move the hospital from expensive rented premises to its own building in 1933.

In 1918, the board included chairman Alseika and members doctors Juozas Bagdonas [lt], Vladas Kairiūkštis, Veronika Alseikienė, Antanas Vileišis, Vladas Bagdonas, pharmacist Juozas Dyša, and Pijus Mičiulis.