DIMITRIE CANTEMIR ŞI CHIRURGIA

Abstract

One of the most important works left by Dimitrie Cantemir, among his rich writings, was "INCREMENTORVM ET DECREMENTORVM AVLAE OTHOMANICAE SIVE ALIOTHMANICAE HISTORIAE A PRIMA GENTIS ORIGINE AD NOSTRA VSQVE TEMPORA DEDVCTATE LIBRI TRES", translated nowadays under the title "HISTORY OF THE INCREASE AND THE DECAY OF THE OTTHMAN OR ALIOTHMAN COURT (FROM THE BEGINNINGS OF THE NATION TO OUR TIME), IN THREE BOOKS". Among other information, it also contains a description of the land and the city of Avlonia - i.e. Vlora (dominated then by the Sublime Porta), as well as the Albanians from that region who had several qualities: fierce fighters, builders of aqueducts (without formal education) and healers of hernia by surgical operation. The surgery part has a special significance. In 1734 ”Incrementorum...” was translated into English by pastor Tindal, historian and translator. He used a manuscript in Latin given to him by Antioch Cantemir, son of Dimitrie Cantemir. The English text was translated into French by Fr. de Joncquieres. In 1745, a German translation appeared in the city of Hamburg, also using the English edition. In 1876, the Romanian Academy, published Iosif Hodoş first Romanian translation of the German edition. Fragments adapted from this edition were then used by Romanian researchers, including historians of medicine, such as Pompei Samarian, Dr. Vasile Sârbu. The original Latin manuscript of Dimitrie Cantemir's text was to be found not earlier than 1984 by Virgil Cândea at the Houghton Library in the USA. The Latinist Dan Sluşanschi published the manuscript and made its first translation from Latin into Romanian. The surgeon Dr. A. E. Nicolau published fragments of this translation, namely the passage regarding the surgical cure. În 2015, years after Dan Sluşanschi passing, the Romanian Academy published the text of the transcribed Latin manuscript and a translation version. In parallel, another academic and surgeon, Mircea Beuran, highlighted Cantemir's text, in a different form, exposing in the Floreasca Hospital on large, colorful, how inguinal hernia was operated in the 17th-18th centuries.