Sanizade

Sanizade (1769-1826) was an important physician and historian of the Ottoman Turks that lived in the first half of the 19th century.

In the area of medicine, the Ottoman Turks only began to develop a modern medical vocabulary in Turkish in about 1826 with the work of Sanizade, who had set about translating European medical treatises into Turkish for the first time. [cite web |url=http://pages.slc.edu/~eraymond/ccorner/exchange/huff.html |title=Campbell Corner - Poetry, Myth, and Philosophy |publisher=Campbell Corner Language Exchange - Science and Metaphysics in the Three Religions of the Book |first=Toby E. |last=Huff |date=2006-08-02 |accessdate=2008-03-20]

His great contributions to the Ottoman Medicine were in transferring European medical knowledge to the Ottoman Empire. In one of his works on medicine that was written in the 1810s, "Hamse-i Sanizade", a work of five volumes, the volume titled "Kanunü'l Cerrahin" (the Law of Surgery) dealt with surgery. In the introduction of the book, diseases necessitating surgery and surgical operations are described in brief. In the part concerning diseases requiring surgery; swellings, diseases of the urogenital organs, hard and soft tumors, injuries and wounds and methods of their treatment are dealt with. As an additional part, orthopedical disorders, such as fractures, dislocations, and other skeletal disorders are described. The book could only be published in 1828 posthumously however, after Sanizade's death.cite web |url=http://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline/ebm/record/15053015/abstract/%5BA_review_of_Sanizade_Mehmed_Ataullah_Efendi's_book:_Kanunu'l_Cerrahin%5D |title=A review of Sanizade Mehmed Ataullah Efendi's book: Kanunu'l Cerrahin |publisher=Unbound MEDLINE |accessdate=2008-03-20]

In addition to writing books about medicine, he also wrote important books concerning history. Ottoman historian Sanizade made some very significant observations in his account of the events of the year 1236/1820-21. In this passage he speaks with approval of the holding of "consultative meetings" in government affairs. He observes that such consultations were customary in "certain well-organized states", referring to the states of Europe. He attributed to the persons attending these meetings a role new to Islamic political thought and practice. The members of these councils, he notes, consist of two groups, the "servants of the state" and the "representatives of the subjects". They discuss and argue freely and thus reach a decision. In this underemphasized, almost imperceptible manner he introduces such new and strange notions as popular representation, free debate, and corporate decision. [cite book |authorlink=Bernard Lewis |last=Lewis |first=Bernard |title=What Went Wrong? - Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response |date=2002 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=56]

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