ΕΠΙΣΤΗΜΟΝΙΚΟΣ ΠΑΤΡΙΩΤΙΣΜΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΚΗ ΣΥΝΟΧΗ ΣΤΑ ΣΥΓΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΑ ΥΓΙΕΙΝΗΣ ΤΟΥ ΣΑΡΑΝΤΗ ΑΡΧΙΓΕΝΟΥΣ

Abstract

During the re-establishment of ‘‘scientific medicine’’ in Paris, the transition from ‘‘library medicine’’ to clinical medicine, and the concurrent emergence of a hygiene movement, two medical hygiene texts were published there in 1841, one in Greek and one in French, by Sarantis Archigenes (Epivates, Thrace 1809 – Istanbul 1873), who was soon to play a distinguished role in the Orthodox community and wider Ottoman society as a doctor and a professor of the Imperial Medical School for thirty years.

The works, addressed to different recipients –ethnic Greeks via the Greek language and the inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire via French, the language of the new Ottoman reformist elite– present personal hygiene rules interspersed with public health recommendations to administrators, with the aim of being useful to the patris/patrie. The content of this scientific patriotism is double: liberation from ignorance and superstition, and social cohesion. This paper examines its relationship with both the Modern Greek Enlightenment and the Ottoman reform movement, the last glimmer of the Balkan Enlightenment, as well as aspects of modernity in and the reception of the texts themselves.