From Quinaquina to ‘Quinine Law’: A Bitter Chapter in the Westernisation of Turkish Medicine

The printed version of Avicenna’s Canon (Rome, 1593) in Arabic was available in the Ottoman market. Copies were extant in the library of Sultan’s palace, the private collections of wealthy Ottomans and the public libraries of Istanbul. Unver, Suheyl. ‘Sur les relations medicales entre la Turquie et l’Italie dans l’histoire de la medecine’, Ist. Univ. Tip Fak. Mecm., 18 (3), 1955, 519-527. The Flemish traveler Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq related in his Turkish Lettersthat before leaving Istanbul in 1562, he had sent a Spanish doctor by the name of Albacare to the Island of Lemnos, and asked of him to attend the annual ceremony organized for the opening of clay beds and the production of Terra sigillata. This drug was much popular because of its several medicinal properties: it was used to prevent hemorrhage, heal wounds, treat ulcers and gonorrhoea, for its astringent and siccative effects. It was also recommended as an antidote in food poisoning because of its emetic poperties. An interesting account is given in Domenico Hierosolimitano’s memoires describing Istanbul in in his years as court physician to Sultan Murad III: Domenico’s Istanbul, trans. M.J.L. Austin, ed. G. Lewis, Wiltshire, E.J.W.Gibb Memorial Trust, 2001