"Disease and Death in Early 19th Century Istanbul as Recorded in Ottoman Death Registers" Gülhan Balsoy & Cihangir Gündoğdu (Istanbul Bilgi University)
In the early 19th century, the Ottoman Empire established a state-sponsored system for inspecting and registering the deceased. For the first time, medical professionals known as tabib were employed to investigate the causes of death within the city limits of Istanbul. This initial surveillance effort, conducted in 1838–39, resulted in the creation of the city’s first two death registers, which documented a total of 9,500 individual cases. In this presentation, we will explore the surveillance of death and disease in the 19th-century Ottoman Empire. By examining the disease category, we aim to further discuss the causes of death and their connections with gender, age, ethnicity, profession, and location.