Diseases, Doctors and Patient-Doctor Relationships in Ottoman Cyprus as Revealed in Sharia Court Records

Abstract

Throughout history, Cyprus has hosted many civilizations and states due to its strategic location in the Mediterranean. One of them is the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans conquered the island in 1571 and maintained their rule until 1878. The scholarly attempt to grasp the Ottoman Empire with its all institutional, political, social, economic and cultural aspects has been one of the fields of interest for world historiography. It is obvious that local history studies in the countries experienced the Ottoman rule, would help and contribute to draw a general picture of the Ottoman Empire. In this context, the current work, mainly relying on the religious court records, aims to identify the diseases except the contagious ones such as cholera, plague and malaria. The other aim is to investigate and analyse the doctor-patient relations within social, economic and juridical contexts in Ottoman Cyprus. The results reveal that the overwhelming majority of the doctors operating in Cyprus were in private practice until the second half of the 19th century when the Ottomans started the centralization and modernization of its institutions including the health services, and thus to view the healthcare services as a public service. Although the state did not take responsibility for public healthcare services for public, it had a certain control mechanism on the doctors and their operations.