Sabuncuoğlu Şerefeddin was a physician and surgeon who lived in Amasya in the fifteenth century and left three medical books in Turkish. One is a translation of a Persian book of drug formulas, one a surgical handbook based on the surgical section of the Andalusian physician al-Zahrawi and furnished with his own illustrations, and the last a book of the remedies he had tested himself. In all three the author cares less about whether a book counts as a translation, a compilation or an original work than about whether it will be of use to its reader, and he says so plainly in his prefaces and afterwords. This page deals with his authorship and his works.

Judging by the ages he gives, he was born in 788 (1386). He was the grandson of Sabuncuoğlu Hacı İlyas Çelebi, chief physician to Mehmed I (Çelebi Mehmed), and grew up in one of Amasya's well-known families of physicians. He practised for fourteen years at the Amasya Darüşşifa (hospital), spent some time in Kastamonu under the Candarid ruler İsfendiyar Bey, and in 1465 travelled to Istanbul to present his finished surgical book to Mehmed II (the Conqueror) before returning to Amasya. He appears to have died after 1468; his grave is unknown. His life, his family and the debates in the sources are told in detail in the biography Sabuncuoğlu Şerefeddin.

Works

Three works can be attributed to Sabuncuoğlu with certainty, and all three are in Turkish. Taken in order, a translation, a mixture of adaptation and original writing, and an original work resting entirely on his own experience, they show the author bringing his own voice further forward as he grew older. A fourth work was attributed to him in error.

Translation of the Akrâbâzîn

Type and language: A book of drug formulas (akrâbâzîn) translated from Persian into Turkish. Original work: the final section, entitled "Akrâbâzîn", of the Persian medical encyclopaedia Zahîre-i Hârizmşâhî by Zeyneddin İsmâil b. Hasan al-Jurjani (d. 1136). In Islamic medicine, akrâbâzîn is the name given to books that collect recipes for the preparation of medicines.

Date and place of writing: The date is disputed. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi states that the translation was made in 1444 at the request of Prince Bayezid during his second governorship of Amasya. Since Bayezid II was born in 1448, this date cannot be reconciled with that prince. A publication based on the work of Şaban Doğan reports instead that the translation was made in 858 AH (1454) at the request of Bayezid's physicians in Amasya; this date fits the prince's arrival in the province. Whichever date is accepted, the book was written in Amasya and for the circle of the princely court there.

Contents: Sabuncuoğlu expanded Jurjani's section of thirty-one chapters (bab) to thirty-three with his own additions. The book opens with the methods of preparing drugs and then, distinguishing simple (müfred) from compound (mürekkeb) drugs, gives formulas in the following order: electuaries, eyâriç, cevâriş, ıtrıfil, pastilles, powders, linctuses, syrups, preserves, gargles, oils and ointments. This is a classification by the form of the drug: electuaries are mixtures kneaded with honey, pastilles (kurs) are flat tablets, süfûf are powders and linctuses (laûk) are thick syrups taken by licking. At the end Sabuncuoğlu added a glossary giving the Arabic, Persian and Turkish medical terms he had used in the translation side by side. This glossary is an early example of the effort to open the technical language of a translation with Turkish equivalents a reader could understand.

Manuscripts and studies: Süleymaniye Library, Fatih no. 3536 and Kılıç Ali Paşa no. 761/1. Kenan Süveren wrote a doctoral study comparing this translation with Avicenna's work of the same name from the standpoint of the history of medicine and science (GATA, Ankara 1991). No printed edition has been found.

Cerrâhiyyetü'l-Hâniyye

Type and language: An illustrated surgical book in Turkish. It also appears in the sources as Cerrâhiyye-i İlhâniyye; the title means "the book of surgery belonging to the sovereign". Date and place of writing: It was completed in Amasya in 870 (1465), when the author was eighty-three, and dedicated to Mehmed II.

Source: The basis of the book is the thirtieth section, devoted to surgery, of the medical encyclopaedia Kitâb al-Tasrîf li-man ʿajiza ʿan al-taʾlîf by Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (d. 1013). Sabuncuoğlu rendered this section largely into Turkish, but added two new chapters, his own observations and coloured pictures showing operations. Whether the work should count as a translation or an original composition has long been debated. Western historians mostly regard it as an adaptation with original contributions; İlter Uzel, who edited it, argues that no Arabic original corresponding to it word for word exists. In 1987 John L. Gueriguian quoted a researcher who had compared the Paris copy with al-Zahrawi's text and concluded that "the Turkish author has literally translated the latter into Turkish". Between these two extremes, it is accepted that the backbone of the text comes from al-Zahrawi, while the illustrations, the added chapters and the case histories belong to Sabuncuoğlu.

Contents: In the Paris copy a three-page preface, a five-couplet poem and a twenty-three-page table of contents are followed by three books (bab). The first describes the treatment of various diseases by cauterisation, with fifty-six miniatures and eleven drawings of instruments. The second, of ninety-six chapters, describes incision, suturing, the removal of stones and similar operations, with fifty-eight miniatures and 146 drawings of instruments; the third, of thirty-six chapters, deals with fractures and dislocations, with twenty-four miniatures and eleven drawings of instruments. Other studies give different figures depending on the copy and on how the images are counted.

What sets the book apart in the history of medicine is its pictures. Earlier Islamic medical books drew instruments, but they had no scenes with human figures showing the position of patient and physician during an operation. Sabuncuoğlu's miniatures show how the patient is to be laid down, where the physician stands, how many assistants are needed and how the instrument is held. Women physicians examining women patients are also depicted; the text calls them "tabibe". It has also been noted that some of the cauterisation points coincide with acupuncture points. Because the text is written in fully vowelled naskh, it directly reflects the pronunciation of fifteenth-century Anatolian Turkish; the work is therefore a source for historians of language and of painting as much as for historians of medicine.

Manuscripts: Three copies are known. The copies in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, Supplément Turc no. 693, and in the Millet Library in Istanbul, no. 79, came from Sabuncuoğlu's own pen. The third is in the Library of the History of Medicine of the Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine (TY no. 263); many of its pages are missing, but its miniatures are considered superior in artistic value. The finest is the Paris copy, presented to Mehmed II and bearing the seal of Bayezid II. It measures 18 × 26.5 cm and consists of 205 folios, each page written in seventeen lines of vowelled naskh, with red ink used for headings. The copy left the palace at an unknown date, was given to a French physician by Yâsincizâde İlmî Efendi in 1860 and passed to the Bibliothèque Nationale in 1871.

Editions: Ali Canip Yöntem introduced the work to scholarship in 1927. A. Süheyl Ünver published on it in 1939. In 1960 P. Huard and M. D. Grmek published the Paris copy with its miniatures in a French study. İlter Uzel published a facsimile and transcription, prepared by collating the three copies, with extensive commentary in two volumes through the Turkish Historical Society (Ankara 1992). Since then the book has been studied separately in many fields, from general surgery to ophthalmology, otorhinolaryngology, neurosurgery and orthopaedics.

Mücerrebnâme

Type and language: A book in Turkish in which the author describes the drugs and treatments he had tested himself. The title means "the book of things tried"; Hüsameddin refers to the work as "Kitâbü'l-Mücerrebât". Date and place of writing: It was written in Amasya in 873 (1468), when the author was eighty-five.

Reason for writing: In the preface Sabuncuoğlu says that he wrote the book at the request of the circle of physicians in Amasya. His colleagues asked him to bring together the experience he had gained so far in such a way that they would have no need to consult other books. He states that he wrote it to help his colleagues, the sick and the students, and to earn their prayers.

Contents: The book, in seventeen chapters, describes the preparation and use of drugs tested on animals, on people and on the author himself. The chapters are arranged by the type and use of the drugs; theriacs, electuaries, powders, plasters, suppositories, syrups and gargles, eye remedies, tablets, ointments and oils, enemas, emetics, and remedies for the mouth and teeth are among them. The drugs are listed from the most to the least used. The way the cases are told recalls the modern case report: who the patient was, what the complaint was, what was given and what the outcome was. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, the work is the first monograph in Turkish medical history in which a physician describes drugs and methods of treatment of his own discovery.

Its best-known pages are the experiments with poisons and antidotes. The author tells how, after drinking a theriac he had prepared himself, he let a venomous snake bite his finger and saw no sign of poisoning. In another experiment he plucked the feathers from a cockerel's thigh, had a snake bite the bare skin, then gave the bird theriac and observed the symptoms disappear within two days. The phrase "Tecrübe delîl-i sıdktır" (trial is the proof of truth) reflects the stance of the whole book. The author does not hide that he did not apply to others a treatment he was not sure of, or that he learned the cure of a disease he did not know from those who did. Where he quotes, he names Hippocrates, Galen and Avicenna.

The book also carries fragments of the author's life. He himself says that he was in Kastamonu, when telling of a case there: "Şerefeddin eydür Kastamonide olurdum İsfendiyar Bey yanındadır, orada bir nakkaş yiğit vardı." In English: "Şerefeddin says: I was in Kastamonu, in the service of İsfendiyar Bey; there was a young painter there." The stories of his journey to Istanbul and of the mercury wick he prepared on the way back because he had caught lice are also found in this book.

Manuscript and edition: Süleymaniye Library, Fatih no. 3619. The work was first introduced by Rusçuklu Hakkı in the newspaper İkdam in 1920. The edition by İlter Uzel and Kenan Süveren appeared in 1999 among the publications of the Atatürk Cultural Centre.

The Müfîd Attributed to Him

In his Osmanlı Müellifleri, Bursalı Mehmed Tâhir attributed to Sabuncuoğlu a medical work in verse called Müfîd (Nazmü't-teshîl). Later studies showed that the book belongs to his pupil Muhyiddin Mehî, and that Sabuncuoğlu copied this work of his pupil in his own hand in naskh script. This copy is a small but concrete document of his skill as a calligrapher and of his relationship with his pupils.

The Choice to Write in Turkish

What binds Sabuncuoğlu's three works together is language. The terms in his works show that he knew Arabic and Persian well; even so, he chose to write in Turkish deliberately and explained why, twice, in his own words. In the afterword to the Translation of the Akrâbâzîn he says:

Zîrâ kim 'ilm-i tıbbın kitâbları Fârisî ve Tâzî dilinde düzülmişdür. Rûm ehlünün ekseri 'Arabî ve Fârisî dilün bilmeyüp âciz ve âtıl olmuşlardır.

In English: For the books of the science of medicine have been written in Persian and Arabic. Most of the people of Rum, not knowing Arabic and Persian, have been left helpless before these books and unable to use them.

The same thought is repeated in still plainer words in the Cerrâhiyyetü'l-Hâniyye:

Bu kitabı Türkî yazdum. Türkî yazduğum şol ecilden oldu kim Kavm-i Rûm Türkî dilin söylerler... ohuyanları dahi Türkî kitâblar ohurlar.

In English: I wrote this book in Turkish. The reason I wrote it in Turkish is this: the people of Rum speak Turkish, and those of them who read also read Turkish books. The author goes on to say that most surgeons of his time could not read or write, that those who could were able to read only Turkish books, and that by turning to a book in Turkish they would be saved from making mistakes. "Rum" here means Anatolia, and "Kavm-i Rûm" the Turkish-speaking people of Anatolia.

He writes with the same frankness that he kept nothing back: "Ey tâlib bilmiş olasın, bu bana keşf olan san'atı aslıyla bu kitabta beyân ve 'ayân itdim. Hiç nev'ale buhl itmedim." In English: Know, O student, that I have set out plainly in this book the art that was revealed to me, in its essence, and have been miserly in no respect. The sentence can be read as a master's bequest to his apprentice.

Amasya in His Works

Amasya is not described as a landscape in Sabuncuoğlu's books. The city appears between the lines, as the place where the books were written, where patients were treated and where colleagues asked for books. The clearest instance is in the Mücerrebnâme, where he describes the journey he made to present his book to Mehmed II:

Kim bir kere pâdişâh kapısında maslahatım oldu, vardım İstanbul'a indim... sonra maslahatımız bitip yine Amassiyya şehrine ric'at ettik.

In English: Once I had business at the sultan's gate, so I went down to Istanbul... then, our business done, we returned again to the city of Amasya. The spelling "Amassiyya" in the text reflects one of the Turkish pronunciations of the city's name at the time. This sentence is the main record showing that the Cerrâhiyyetü'l-Hâniyye was taken from Amasya to Istanbul in 1465 to be presented to the sultan and that the author returned to his city. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi bases this information on folio 44b of the Fatih copy of the Mücerrebnâme; the same passage relates that on the way back he stopped at Bolu, Gerede and Tosya.

Amasya's second trace is the reason the book was written. According to the preface of the Mücerrebnâme, those who asked for the book were the physicians of Amasya. This shows that in the mid-fifteenth century there was a community of physicians in the city, around the darüşşifa, who drew on one another's experience and read books in Turkish. The third trace is a case in the Cerrâhiyyetü'l-Hâniyye: the author relates that he lanced a tumour the size of an egg on the cheek of a student who was learning calligraphy from him. The text does not say that this took place in Amasya, but given that the author spent most of his life there, it may be taken as a hint that he worked in the city both as a physician and as a teacher of calligraphy; this is our inference.

The encounter told in the biography, when he met in the Amasya market a patient whose life he had saved by opening his throat, is a record of the same kind. As we have not found the original wording of this story in the sources available to us, we do not quote it here.

Influence and Assessment in the Sources

Sabuncuoğlu's name is first met after his death in the Alâim-i Cerrâhîn of the surgeon İbrâhim b. Abdullah, dated 911 (1505). İbrâhim b. Abdullah names him and quotes from the Mücerrebnâme the formula of a suppository used in women's diseases. His pupil Gıyâs b. Muhammed İsfahânî, in the Persian Mir'âtü's-sıhha dedicated to Bayezid II, praises his teacher's achievements in medicine and says he took him as his model. After that his name is not mentioned for a long time. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi attributes this to two main causes: that he lived in the provinces, in Amasya, and that he wrote his works in Turkish rather than in Arabic, the scholarly language of the age.

Amasya's own historian, Hüseyin Hüsameddin, records him under the heading "Şerefeddîn İsa Çelebi-Sabuncuzâde" and gives particular prominence to the Mücerrebnâme among his works. The part of his entry concerning the works reads:

855 târihinde Fatih Sultân Mehmed'in cülûsunda Amasya Dârüşşifâ'sı tabîbi olup yirmi yıldan ziyâde bu vazîfesinde mukdimâne çalışdı. Amasya vâliliğinde Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî'ye çatıp etibbâ-yı hâssa meyânına idhâl edildi. Büyük bir refâh gördü. İşte bu esnâda tedâvî etdiği hastalar üzerinde tatbikler, tecrübeler icrâ ederek tecrübelerinin hülâsasından bâhis "Kitâbü'l-Mücerrebât" adlı eserini yazdı. Dişçiliğe, eczâcılığa dâir de eserler yazıp Türk tabâbetine hayli eserler yazıp 878 sâlinden sonra vefât etdi.

In English: In 855 (1451), at the accession of Mehmed II, he became physician of the Amasya Darüşşifa and worked zealously in this post for more than twenty years. When Sultan Bayezid II was governor of Amasya he drew close to him and was admitted among the physicians of the household, and he enjoyed great prosperity. It was at this time that, by carrying out applications and trials on the patients he treated, he wrote his work called "Kitâbü'l-Mücerrebât", which sets out a summary of these trials. He also wrote works on dentistry and pharmacy, gave many works to Turkish medicine, and died after the year 878 (1473-74).

Hüsameddin's account makes his service at the darüşşifa longer than the fourteen years given in modern studies and moves his death to after 1473-74. It is striking that he does not mention the Cerrâhiyyetü'l-Hâniyye at all and speaks of works on "dentistry and pharmacy". The dental material is known to be contained within the Cerrâhiyye; in 1975 İlter Uzel examined the dental information in this book in a separate article. The work on pharmacy is most probably the Translation of the Akrâbâzîn. It may be supposed that Hüsameddin had before him records giving the titles and subjects of these books rather than the books themselves; this is our inference.

Rediscovery begins at the start of the twentieth century: the Mücerrebnâme was introduced in 1920 and the Cerrâhiyyetü'l-Hâniyye in 1927, followed by the publications of Ünver, Huard and Grmek, Uzel and Süveren. A congress in Sabuncuoğlu's name was held in Kayseri in 1985, and the international congress held in Amasya in 2008 to mark the 700th anniversary of the darüşşifa brought his works to attention again. Today the darüşşifa where he worked is open to visitors as the Sabuncuoğlu Museum of the History of Medicine and Surgery.

A comparison with the other physician-author to come out of Amasya in the same century, Amirdovlat Amasyatsi, is also instructive. Gueriguian explains Amirdovlat's writing his works only in Armenian by his remark that "there was a void among us as to the knowledge of drugs, and for this reason we became dependent on foreigners". Sabuncuoğlu's sentences on his choice of Turkish carry the same concern: to bring medical knowledge to a community of physicians who read in their own language. There is no document showing whether the two Amasya physicians knew each other. For Amirdovlat's works see Amirdovlat Amasyatsi: Writer and Works.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Academic studies

Official sources

Books

  • Sabuncuoğlu Şerefeddin, Mücerrebnâme, Süleymaniye Library, Fatih no. 3619, fol. 44b (as cited in the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi article). islamansiklopedisi.org.tr

Other sources