1893-1895 İstanbul Kolera Salgınında Avrupalı Uzmanlar ve Osmanlı Devleti’nde Sağlık Modernizasyonuna Katkıları

Cholera epidemics, like plague, influenza, and smallpox, take an important place in the history of medicine. While the bacterial ones of these outbreaks have been taken under control with the discovery of antibiotics, the viral ones are still a threat to humanity. The COVID-19, the current outbreak, has created a significant fear of humanity and causes great losses. Human experience from the past outbreaks can help today’s world. This article firstly discussed the controversial processes during the emergence of the concepts of microbes and contamination, and a part of the ongoing war with cholera in the Ottoman Empire, which reached to the Empire in 1831, with the arrival of the second epidemic that reached Europe. The contributions of European doctors, especially of Dr. Andre Chantemesse, in this war and in the modernization of the Ottoman Empire were examined.