Özet:

Trachoma is an infectious eye disease and a significant public health issue in terms of the history of Turkish medicine. Trachoma was endemic to Southeast Anatolia until World War I, when it then spread all over the country and caused vision loss and blindness in many people. The fight against trachoma went on the government’s agenda only after the proclamation of the Turkish Republic. Due to the country having three million trachoma patients in 1923, the Minister of Health Dr. Refik Saydam added trachoma to the list of infectious diseases to be fought. As a result, the Ministry of Health (Sağlık Bakanlığı) and the Department of Public Hygiene (Hıfzıssıhha Dairesi) instigated a great initiative to eradicate infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, syphilis, and trachoma. The present article focuses on the fight against trachoma in the city of Malatya. As only general information is available about the trachoma initiative conducted in the region, the present article examines new sources in order to study it in detail. The study has obtained new detailed information by going through newspapers of the period and interviewing researchers specialized in the history of Malatya, revealing the work undertaken in the fight against trachoma in Malatya during the Republican era.

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