Ottoman Health Museum opens after renovation

Trakya University's European Museum Award-winning Sultan Bayezid II Külliye (social complex) Health Museum, located in the northwestern province of Edirne, has reopened after a one-and-a-half year restoration process. The restoration, sponsored by Turkish drug company Abdi ?brahim, had a cost of 2 million Turkish Liras. 
 
"A sanctuary, medical research center, production factory and doctor training center were all together here. It was a mental and neurological health center. The Ottomans built this place in four years," said Edirne Governor Dursun Ali ?ahin, adding the Ottomans treated mentally-ill people, whereas they were isolated by Europeans in the west.

The 500-year-old Sultan Bayezid II Edirne Hospital has been renovated as a contemporary museum, said Abdi ?brahim President Nezih Barut. 

"Twenty-six rooms of the complex have been redesigned, exactly featuring the same methods applied in the Ottoman era. We have revived the treasures of our history of medicine and now keep them for future generations with modern and impressive presentation techniques," Barut said. 

He said visitors would be able to see that men had undergone aesthetic operations in that era, adding, "Between the 15th and 18th centuries, men had aesthetic chest operations. There were also female doctors who performed hernia surgeries on janissaries. They will also see how the Turkish type smallpox vaccine expanded from Edirne to Europe and learn that the original place of rose production and rose water was Edirne. The treatments of diseases, operation techniques and other information about Ottoman health can be seen with animations in the museum." 

  
Built in 1488

The Sultan Bayezid II Külliye was built in 1488 by Ottoman sultan Bayezid...