The pioneering steps of radiology in Turkey (1896–1923)

Abstract

The discovery of X-rays (1895) by W.C. Roentgen has been a very important step of the modern civilization as a revolutionary technique for scientists all around the world and it has immediately been applied in medical field. The aim of this study is to search the start of radiology in Turkey on the basis of archival and first hand sources. This study shows that Roentgen apparatus was first installed in Turkey by an intern doctor Esad Feyzi who took the first radiographies at the Imperial Medical School (Istanbul) in 1896. He made use of X-ray method for medical diagnosis later on when Turkish-Greek war broke out in 1897. Esad Feyzi worked in the clinical team led by professor Salih Effendi, MD, at the Yildiz Temporary Military Hospital in Istanbul to take radiographies of soldiers wounded at war in cooperation with the German Red Cross medical delegation. This event is most probably the earliest examples of the application of X-ray technique into military surgery all over the world. Researches have also proven that medical radiography technique was also applied in Greece by Greek and English doctors during that war. This war gave the opportunity to German and British medical teams to use X-ray as a radiographic imaging technique at the two confronting sides that was used in consequent wars in other parts of the world, later on. The paper deals with the progress of clinical radiology in Turkey until the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923.