During the Balkan Wars (1912–1913) Istanbul suddenly found itself at the frontline of an unexpectedly disastrous conflict with its Balkan neighbours. One direct consequence of these wars, through troop mobilisation and refugee movement, was a major outbreak of cholera in the Ottoman capital. While entrepreneurs tried to turn this calamity into profit, by selling (useless) medication, the government tried to control the flow of information regarding the disease in order to better combat the epidemic and both parties used the press to achieve their goals. Despite the chaos of the war and the size of the outbreak, the acted efficiently and successfully prevented a potential disaster.
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Unknown, “Cholera”, Public Health Reports (1896 –1970), Vol. 27 (1912), 1514–5.
Dwight, H.G., Constantinople Old and New (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915), pp. 459–63.
Topuzlu, C., İstibdad - Meşrutiyet - Cumhuriyet Devirlerinde 80 Yıllık Hatıralarım (İstanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi Cerrahpaşa Tıp Fakültesi Yayınları, 1982), pp. 124–8.
Duncan-Johnstone, A., With the British Red Cross in Turkey: the Experiences of Two Volunteers, 1912–13 (London: Nisbet, 1913), p. 138.
Huber, V., “The Unification of the Globe by Disease? The International Sanitary Conferences on Cholera, 1851–1894”, The Historical Journal, 49 (2006), p. 459. Of the ten International Sanitary Conferences, to which the Ottoman empire also sent its delegates, eight dealt exclusively with cholera.
Snowden, F.M., “Cholera in Barletta 1910”, Past & Present (1991), pp. 88–9. Snowden’s description of cholera victims is very detailed and very successful in describing the impression that it must have left on witnesses.
Rosenberg, C.E., “Cholera in nineteenth-century Europe: a tool for social and economic analysis”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 8 (1966), pp. 125–6; Evans, “Epidemics and revolutions”, pp. 125–6.
Şehsuvaroğlu, B., “Kolera ile Mücadelede Türklerin Rolü”, Belgelerle Türk Tarihi Dergisi, 3 (1967), pp. 55–6.
Müdüriyeti, Dersaadet’in 1329 senesine mahsus sıhhi istatiğidir, pp. 28–33.
Brummett, P., “Dogs, women, cholera, and other menaces in the streets: cartoon satire in the Ottoman revolutionary press, 1908–11”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 27 (1995), pp. 448, 54.
White, S., “Rethinking disease in Ottoman history”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 42 (2010), pp. 551, 3–4.
Nail Halid (ed.), Musavver Eczacı Nevsalı (Dersaadet: Kader Matbaası, 1328).
Tekiner, H., “I wish I had an aspirin! Reflections on aspirin in Turkish literature”, Osmanlı Bilimi Araştırmaları, 12 (2011), p. 129.
See for example Briggs, “Cholera and society”, p. 88; Snowden, “Cholera in Barletta”, p. 81.
Burrell, R.M., “The 1904 epidemic of cholera in Persia: some aspects of Qājār society”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 51 (1988), p. 260.
van Zyl, K., “Lies, damned lies, and statistics: a comparison of the construction of authority and responsibility in two South African cholera epidemics”, South African Historical Journal, 64 (2012), pp. 235. Both nineteenth and twenty first century reporting of cholera epidemics in the media reveal the political value of an outbreak.
Baldwin, H.F., A War Photographer in Thrace (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1913), pp. 219.
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During the Balkan Wars (1912–1913) Istanbul suddenly found itself at the frontline of an unexpectedly disastrous conflict with its Balkan neighbours. One direct consequence of these wars, through troop mobilisation and refugee movement, was a major outbreak of cholera in the Ottoman capital. While entrepreneurs tried to turn this calamity into profit, by selling (useless) medication, the government tried to control the flow of information regarding the disease in order to better combat the epidemic and both parties used the press to achieve their goals. Despite the chaos of the war and the size of the outbreak, the acted efficiently and successfully prevented a potential disaster.
All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 526 | 136 | 7 |
Full Text Views | 190 | 6 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 37 | 11 | 0 |