Owing to the scarcity of medical help in the army and in the interior, ukases issued in 1865 and 1867 declared Jewish physicians, even without the title of Doctor of Medicine, to be admissible to the medical corps and later on to civil service in all places of the Empire, except the capitals St.Petersburg and Moscow.
Nevertheless, the extension of the plain right of domicile, without admission to civil service, remained for a long time dependent on a learned degree.

It was only after two decades of hesitation that the law of January 19, 1879, conferred the right of universal residence on _all_ categories of persons with a higher education, regardless of the nature of the diploma, and also including pharmacists, dentists, _feldshers_, [1] and midwives.
[Footnote 1: From the German _Feldscherer_, a sort of combination of leech, first-aid, and barber, who frequently gave medical advice.] The privileges bestowed upon the big merchants and "titled" intellectuals affected but a few small groups of the Jewish population.
The authorities now turned their attention to the mass of the people, and, in accordance with its rules of political homoeopathy, commenced to pick from it a handful of persons for better treatment.

The question of admitting Jewish artisans into the Russian interior occupied the Government for a long time.

In 1856 Lanskoy, the Minister of the Interior, entered into an official correspondence concerning this matter with the governors-general and governors of the Western provinces.

Most of the replies were favorable to the idea of conferring upon Jewish artisans the right of universal residence.