The present article shows how medico-biological and medico-topographical descriptions of Russian cities and regions can be used as sources for the social history of medicine in the Russian Empire in the first half of the 19th century. They bear evidence that graduates of the medical faculties of Imperial universities became experts in social and economic situation of various regions of the empire. The medico-topographical descriptions provide ample information on the number and the structure of the population and its occupations, the city space organization, the sanitary and hygienic condition of dwellings, offices, hospitals and almshouses, the level of medical culture development of local population, the predominant diseases and their origin, and the distribution of popular medicine in different areas of Russia. The authors of these descriptions created new knowledge, and they can be used as a reliable source of information about the population in the Russian state.