“May Those Who Understand What I Wrote Remember This Humble One”: Paratextual Elements in Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Medical Manuscripts

Year 2020, , 35 - 51, 22.12.2020

Akif Ercihan Yerlioğlu

https://doi.org/10.53979/yillik.2020.3

Abstract

For students of early modern manuscript cultures, paratextual components are indispensable in inferring the ways in which people read, studied, and copied a codex. However, Ottoman manuscripts of medicine and healing have not been studied extensively by taking into account how their readers engaged with those texts. This article focuses on the entangled world of healing in eighteenth century Ottoman manuscript culture by using paratexts that connect widely circulated codices of the
era to one another and demonstrates that boundaries between scholarly and popular medicine, or alchemy and medicine, were blurry for some readers. Moreover, examples of contributions and interventions from copyists and previous owners of manuscripts reveal the necessity to better understand these figures, other than medical professionals, who had an impact on the reception of medical texts.

Keywords

early modern reading culture, paratexts, Islamic manuscripts, alchemy, popular medicine

Thanks

I wish to thank Deniz Türker Cerda, Aslıhan Gürbüzel, Oscar Aguirre-Mandujano, K. Mehmet Kentel, Selim S. Kuru, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions. I also gratefully acknowledge the support of Gerda Henkel Foundation.

“Ne yazdığımı fehm idüp bu fakiri yâd eyleye”: On Sekizinci Yüzyıl Osmanlı Tıp Yazmalarında Metin Dışı Unsurlar

Abstract

Erken modern yazma kültürü araştırmacıları için ana metin dışı (paratextual) unsurlar, bir eserin nasıl okunmuş, çalışılmış ve istinsah edilmiş olduğu hakkında çıkarım yapmak için önemli ipuçları sunar. Bununla birlikte, Osmanlı tıp ve şifa yazmalarının nasıl okundukları konusunda kapsamlı çalışmalar yapılmamıştır. Bu makale, on sekizinci yüzyılın yaygın olarak okunan eserlerini birbiriyle bağlantılandıran metin dışı ögeleri mercek altına alarak dönemin şifa kültürünün karmaşıklığına odaklanmakta ve bu yolla, ilmi/popüler tıp ya da simya/tıp gibi alanlar arasındaki ayrımların bazı okurlar nezdinde daha bulanık olduğunu göstermektedir. Ayrıca, müstensihlerin ve kitapların önceki sahiplerinin metinlere yaptıkları yorum, katkı ve müdahalelere dair örnekler, tıbbi metinlerin nasıl algılandığı üzerinde etkisi olan ve tıp mesleğinin dışında kalan bu aktörleri daha iyi anlamamız gerektiğini ortaya koymaktadır.

Keywords

erken modern okuma kültürü, derkenar notları, İslam el yazmaları, simya, popüler tıp

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