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Medicine in the Ottoman Empire was practiced in nearly all places of society as physicians treated patients in homes, markets, and hospitals. Treatment at these different locations were generally the same, but different modalities of treatment existed throughout the Ottoman Empire. Different methodologies included humoral principles, curative medicine, preventative medicine, and prophetic medicine. Ottoman hospitals also adopted the concept of integralism in which a holistic approach to treatment was used. Considerations of this approach included quality of life and care and treatment of both physical and mental health. The integralistic approach shaped the structure of the Ottoman hospital as each sector and group of workers was dedicated to treating a different aspect of the patient’s well-being. All shared the general consensus of treating patients with kindness and gentility, but physicians treated the physical body, and musicians used music therapy to treat the mind. Music was regarded as a powerful healing tune and that different sounds had the ability to create different mental states of health.

One of the original building blocks of early Ottoman medicine was humoralism, and the concept of illness to be a result of disequilibrium among the four humors of the body. The four physiological humors each related to one of the four elements: blood and air, phlegm and water, black bile and earth, yellow bile and fire.

Medicinal treatments in early Ottoman medicine often include the use of foods and beverages. Coffee, taken both medicinally and recreationally, was used to treat stomach problems and indigestion by working as a laxative. The stimulant properties of coffee eventually gained recognition and coffee was used to curb fatigue and exhaustion. The use of coffee in medicinal senses was done more in practice by civilians than hospital professionals.

Hospitals and related health-care institutions were referred to as a variety of names: dârüşşifâ, dârüssıhhâ, şifâhâne, bîmaristân, bîmarhâne, and timarhâne. Hospitals were vakif institutions, dedicated to charity and offering care to people of all social classes. The aesthetic aspects of the hospitals, including gardens and architecture, were said to be “healing by design.” The hospitals also included hammams, or bathhouses, to treat the patients’ humors.

The first Ottoman hospital established was the Faith Complex dârüşşifâ in 1470; it closed in 1824. Unique features of the hospital were the separation of patients by sex and the use of music to treat the mentally ill. The Bâyezîd Dârüşşifâ was founded in 1488 and is most recognized for its unique architecture that served as an influence an influence in the architecture of later European hospitals. The hospital built by Ayşe Hafsa Sulta in 1522 is recognized as one of the most esteemed hospitals of the Ottoman empire. The hospital devoted a separate wing for the mentally ill, until later limiting all treatment to only the mentally ill. The bîmârîstân’s medrese provided medical students with combined theoretical and clinical coursework through hospital internships.

Notable Ottoman medical literature includes the work of the Jewish doctor Mûsâ b. Hamun who wrote one of the first literature primarily about dentistry. Hamun also wrote Risâle fî Tabâyi’l-Edviye ve İsti’mâlihâ, which used a combination of Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and European works to transfer European knowledge of medicine to the Ottoman realm. The writer Ibn Cânî, after noticing the prevalence of tobacco use in Turkey, translated Spanish and Arabic works discussing the use of tobacco leaf in medical treatment. The physician Ömer b. Sinan el-İznikî’s works follow the theme of the Chemical Medicine movement and in his two books, Kitâb-I Künûz-I Hayâti’l-İnsân and Kanûn-I Etibbâ-yi Feylosofân, enclosing directions for the production of medicines. One of the key contributors to Ottoman medical education was Şânizâde Mehmed Atâullah Efendi, whose Hamse-I Şânizâde presented modern European anatomy to Ottoman medicine. In 1873, Cemaleddin Efendi and a group of students from the Imperial Medical School put out the Lügat-I Tıbbiye, the first modern medical dictionary written in Turkish.

The first modern medical school of the Ottoman empire was the Naval Medical School, or Tersâne Tıbbiyesi, established in January 1806. The education of the school was largely European-based, using texts in Italian or French and medical journals published in Europe. Behçet Efendi founded the Imperial Medical School, Tıbhâne-I Âmire, of Istanbul in 1827 which was based on the following structural guidelines: the acceptance only of Muslim students, and the teachings would be almost entirely in French. In 1839, after Tanzimat reforms, the school was opened to non-Muslim individuals as well. After this point, non-Muslim students became the majority of graduating class and were better able to adapt and take advantage of the European-based education as many of them already spoke French and were placed into the higher ranking class in the school. The Civilian Medical School (Mekteb-I Tıbbiye-I Mülkiye) was founded in 1866 to raise the number of Muslim doctors. The school’s teachings were done in Turkish and focused on training students to become civilian physicians rather than military physicians.

Ottoman medicine in the mid-nineteenth century developed institutions for preventative medicine and public health. A quarantine office and quarantine council, the Meclis-I Tahaffuz-I Ulâ were established. The council eventually became an international organization with participation from European countries, the United States, Iran, and Russia. The Ottoman Empire was also home to many institutions organized for the purpose of inoculation vaccination research and investigations. In Istanbul the İstanbul Rabies and Bacteriological Laboratory was founded in 1877 for research in microbiology and the testing of rabies inoculation. The Smallpox Vaccination Laboratory and the Imperial Vaccination Center were also created in the late nineteenth century.