Description

An attractive small illustrated manual in original publisher’s blue binding with detailed descriptions of parts of human body, medicine and modern hygiene was published for military uses. Especially interesting are illustrations of western toilets and sewers, which were a novelty in the Ottoman empire and also great contribution to fight against cholera and other diseases.

The author is not signed, but the text was probably based on the articles by medical doctor Hüseyin Remzi (1853-1936), who in 1885 travelled to Pasteur institute to learn about the vaccines and modern medicine and later became one of the leading Ottoman medical doctors and specialists for vaccines and hygiene. In the 1890s he published a series of newspaper articles on the subject, which were basis for printed books for the military, some of them signed with his name.

The publisher and author of the introduction, İbrahim Hilmi Çığıraçan (1876 – 1963), born in Tulcea, opened his publishing shop in 1896 in Istanbul, under the name Kitaphane-i Islami (Islamic Library), where he started publishing mostly religious books.
Under the Young Turks regime, in the Second Constitutional Era, he became interested in military, geography and history, and changed the name of the press to Kitaphane-i İslam ve Askeri (Islamic and Military Library). Hilmi Bey published about 200 military books in 15 years.

This is an attractive example in original publisher’s binding.

References: OCLC 66765218.