A discussion of actual problems in the medical maintenance of the Armed Forces of Russia--combat and deployment readiness of the medical service, its personnel training programmes, sanitary-epidemiological control, medical treatment and prophylactics, medical materiel research and development for troops health care. The article deals with the military medical service' tasks of 1999 and of the imminent future focusing on the medical specialists' education with a due regard for their stationing and a possibility of substitution of military medical officers by civilians and the formation of an overall Armed Forces medical maintenance system on a territorial basis.