The late Ottoman era and its legacy for nursing in Turkey

ABSTRACT

Reforms in the late Ottoman era had dramatic effects on health, education, and gender roles. Women had been midwives and nurses in the imperial palace since the early modern period, but few had public roles and they did not participate in the military sphere. This study examines nursing at the crossroads of these changes, showing that shifting societal attitudes form the context for women’s increasing involvement in public activities and professions and contributed to their successful wartime recruitment by the Ottoman Red Crescent in the early twentieth century, setting the stage for modern nursing’s development in the Republic of Turkey.

KEYWORDS:

• Nursing; late ottoman empire
• ottoman red crescent; war
• Turkish nursing

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Prof. Eray Serdar Yurdakul and Mrs. Nuray Güneş from The History of Military Medicine Museum and Archive; the Gülhane Faculty of Medicine, Health Sciences University, Ankara, Turkey; and Recep Can and Özkan Usödev from the Turkish Red Crescent Archive for their invaluable help. Special thanks are due to Mr. Muhammet Fatih Vergili for his contribution and research assistance and Prof. Miri Shefer-Mossensohn for her essential advice for improving this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Duygu, A Social History, 2.

2 Shefer-Mossensohn, “A Sick Sultana in the Ottoman Palace.”

3 Inal, “The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century.”

4 Yüksel, “Reconstructing the History of Women.”

5 Köksal and Falierou, “Historiography of Late Ottoman Women.”

6 Ibid., 2.

7 Reeves-Ellington, “Constantinople Woman’s College.”

8 Ibid., 13.

9 Gawrych, “Şemseddin Sami,” 12–13, and Kucukalioglu, “Representation of Women.”

10 Evered and Evered, “Governing Population, Public Health.”

11 Evered and Evered, “State, Peasant, Mosquito.”

12 The mortality rates of wounded and ill soldiers among those who managed to arrive at military hospitals were 6.8 percent and 7.3 percent respectively; See Ataç and Uçar, Türk Ordusunda Askeri Sağlik, 76–77.

13 Ibid., 25–28.

14 Ömer Besim, Hastabakıcılığa Dair, Hilal-i Ahmer, 11. (Akalın’s works were accessed from Residency of the Manuscript Society of Turkey – Ankara Regional Directorate of Manuscripts.)

15 Ibid., 19.

16 Ömer Besim, Hastabakıcılığa Dair, Hilal-i Ahmer, 5.

17 Ibid., 20.

18 Metİntaş and Elçioğlub, “Cumhuriyet Döneminde Kurumsallaşan,” and Sarı and Özaydın, “Dr. Besim Ömer Paşa.”

19 Yahub, “Türk Kadınlarmın Hastabakıcılığı,” 2690–2691.

20 Ibid., 2691, 2693.

21 Karacakaya et al., The First World War; Behire, “Nursing Services,” 10, 12; and Metinsoy, Ottoman Women, 121.

22 Metİntaş and Elçioğlub, “Cumhuriyet Döneminde Kurumsallaşan.”

23 Özaydin, “Upper Social Strata Women,” 164.

24 Akalın, Hastabakıcılık. (Akalın’s works were accessed from Presidency of the Manuscript Society of Turkey – Ankara Regional Directorate of Manuscripts), 417–422, 428.

25 Ginio, “Mobilizing the Ottoman Nation;” Özbek, “Defining the Public Sphere”; Metinsoy, Ottoman Women, 119–125; Ataç, and Uçar, Türk Ordusunda Askeri Sağlik, 59, 64-71; and Duruk, “An Effective Leader.”

26 Düzcü and Sezer, Doktor Besim Ömer Ve Dokuzuncu, 11–33, 66.

27 Çapa, Kizilay, 19.

28 Ibid., 13.

29 Ibid., 3.

30 Ibid., 14.

31 Behire, “Nursing Services,” 10.

32 Metİntaş and Elçioğlub, “Cumhuriyet Döneminde Kurumsallaşan,” 107, and Bahçecik and Alpar, “Nursing Education.”

33 Yılmaz Gören and Yalım, “Hemşirelik Tarihinde.”

34 Özaydin, “Upper Social Strata Women,” 164–165.

35 Bahçecik and Alpar, “Nursing Education.”

36 Kruse, “The Shortage of Nurses,” 476.

37 Karabulut, “Nursing in Turkey.”

38 Ornek and Esin, “Occupational Health Nursing” Demirtas et al., “Poverty and Health Inequalities”; and Çınar Özbay et al., “Integrating Family-Centered Care.”

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Barbara Brodie Nursing History 2021 Fellowship Award, The Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry, University of Virginia School of Nursing, and the Karen Buhler-Wilkerson 2021 Faculty Fellowship Award, Barbara Bates Center for the Study of The History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania, School of Nursing.

Notes on contributors

Ronen Segev

Ronen Segev is a lecturer and nursing historian in the Department of Nursing at Tel Aviv University. He received his PhD from Tel Aviv University in 2018 and conducted postdoctoral studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He has published a book on the history of Israeli military nursing in Hebrew and articles on the history of medicine and military nursing. He is currently focusing his research on medical and nursing services in Palestine during the late Ottoman period. Dr. Segev also serves as an executive member of the Israeli Society for the History of Nursing.