Abstract

First-hand archival materials and published in Ottoman Turkish of the greatest significance, are often overlooked by Turkish geographers. Among them, the Medical and Social Geography of Turkey series published by the Turkish Ministry of Health has a special importance. Each of the nineteen books in this unique series, first of which was published in 1922 and the last in 1938, is a remarkable source of research, bringing together survey data, monographic information and field studies. The importance of this series is also due to its demographic estimates and its content that deals with various aspects of the period in which the Turkish Nationalist struggle for Salvation was continuing. Almost every book in the series consists of 6 chapters. Specifically, 4 out of 6 dwell on themes which have a great number of similarities vvith those in monographs vvritten by the geographers of today. The series was produced by the government of the Grand National Assembley a year before the foundation of the Turkish Republic in order to introduce Turkish geographers to the natural resources and problems of their contry and to provide them a basis on which to make their future policy choices. This series gives not only the geographers but also those who study history, folklore and medicine the oppotunity to examine a selection of books which show how Turkeyls location and naturel resources may contribute directly to many of its important historic events. It is invaluable since its topics, especially those in the first book, lay the emphasis on the period vvithin which Turkey experienced many events and developments of considerable significance and vvithin which the became a republic.