Medical eclecticism and changing epistemologies of disease in the Ottoman medical corpus in the late seventeenth century: A critical approach to the perspectives and concepts (Tunahan Durmaz)
Based on a chapter in progress for my dissertation, this presentation aims to discuss the issue of change and transformation in the late seventeenth-century Ottoman medical corpus. The late seventeenth century was a period in which Ottoman medical writers densely interacted with contemporary European medicine. Until now scholars of Ottoman science and medicine have approached this phenomenon from several perspectives such as the concept of “new” and translation and so on. In this regard, I intend to adopt an approach through which we can emphasize the eclectic nature of medical knowledge in this corpus. The image emerging via this critical assessment serves as a background to my empirical analysis of the epistemology of disease. Mainly focusing on the writings of two consecutive head physicians at the Ottoman court Sâlih b. Nasrullah b. Sellûm el-Halebî (d. 1669) and Hayâtîzâde Mustafa Feyzî Efendi (d. 1692), I aim to explore the perceptions of disease through the issues of medical authorship and empiricism.
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