Sex and the capital city: The political framing of syphilis and prostitution in early republican Ankara

Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences

Volumn 68, Issue 2, 2013, Pages 266-299

  Evered, Emine Ö ^a   Evered, Kyle T ^a  

^a MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Ankara; Prostitution; Public health; Public health education; Sexuality; Syphilis; Turkey; Venereal disease

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; FEMALE; HEALTH EDUCATION; HISTORY; HUMAN; LEGAL ASPECT; MALE; MEDICOLEGAL ASPECT; POLITICS; PROSTITUTION; SYPHILIS; TURKEY (REPUBLIC);

FEMALE; HEALTH EDUCATION; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HUMANS; LEGISLATION, MEDICAL; MALE; POLITICS; PROSTITUTION; SYPHILIS; TURKEY;

EID: 84876223464     PISSN: 00225045     EISSN: 14684373     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/jhmas/jrr054     Document Type: Article

References (114)

1. Although Dr. Adnan (Adi{dotless}var) occupied this position for only a brief period, until his resignation, the initial public health policies established at this time were relatively constant under the administrative leaderships of other key figures, such as Dr. Refik (Saydam) (1881-1942). On these formative and transitional (i.e., empire to republic) years in the development of Turkish public health
2. see Osman Gümüşçü, "Osmanli{dotless} 'dan Cumhuriyete Geçişve Cumhuriyetin Ilk Yillarinda Türkiye Halk Saǧliǧi," Atatürk Araşti{dotless}rma Merkezi Dergisi, 2003, 19, 125-46.
3. Although we will cite sources individually throughout the footnotes of our article, it bears mentioning that this study resulted from our collection and analysis of documents held in the following collections: the Prime Minister's Archive of the Republic (or the Başbakanlik Cumhuriyet Arşivi), the Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi Library (for rare books and parliamentary records), and the Refik Saydam Library (for public health-related items), all located in Ankara, Turkey; the Wellcome Library, in London, UK; and the Center for Research Libraries, in Chicago, Illinois.
4. Dr. Muslihiddin Safvet, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İçtimaî Coǧrafyasi: Ankara Vilayeti (Istanbul: Hilâl Matbaasi, 1341/1925).
5. In many regards, the basic organizational structure of each issue of one of the state's primary periodicals, or professional circulars, in public health (i.e., Si{dotless}hhiye Mecmuasi{dotless}-from which we cite accordingly in this article) reveals this orientation toward statistics, legislation, and education in the Turkish community of medicine. In each monthly issue, prior to the publication of research articles and other matter, there was an "official section" (or "Resmîki{dotless}si{dotless}m") that was often quite substantial (e.g., twenty or more pages) with three categories of information: Kanun, Nizamname, Talimatname ve Tamimler (or "Laws, Regulations, Ordinances and Circulars"); İstatistikler (or, "Statistics"-containing the results of various surveys and other data)
6. and Memurin tebeddülât ve tahavvülâti{dotless} (or, approximately, "Civil servants' changes and developments"-a most interesting section that would outline in brief charts the many studies of physicians throughout the country, effectively apprising/educating professionals of the activities of their peers).
7. Such studies on syphilis and associated politics include the following: Allan M. Brandt, No Magic Bullet: A Social History of Venereal Disease in the United States since 1880 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987);
8. Allan M. Brandt, "The Syphilis Epidemic and Its Relation to AIDS," Science, 1988, 239, 375-80;
9. John Parascandola, Sex, Sin, and Science: A History of Syphilis in America (Westport: Praeger, 2008);
10. Claude Quétel, History of Syphilis, trans. Judith Braddock and Brian Pike (Oxford: Polity Press, 1990);
11. Peter Baldwin, Contagion and the State in Europe, 1830-1930 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 355-523.
12. Foundational for this work was Michel Foucault, "Governmentality, " in The Essential Foucault: Selections from Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, ed. Paul Rabinow and Nikolas Rose (New York: The New Press, 2003), 229-45.
13. Also, influential were the following sources, Bryan S. Turner, Medical Power and Social Knowledge (London: Sage Publishers, 1987);
14. Anita Peerson, "Foucault and Modern Medicine," Nurs. Inq., 1995, 2, 106-14;
15. Anthony Pryce, "Governmentality, the Iconography of Sexual Disease and 'Duties' of the STI Clinic," Nurs. Inq., 2001, 8, 151-61; (Pubitemid 33699276)
16. Philip Howell, "Foucault, Sexuality, Geography," in Space, Knowledge, and Power: Foucault and Geography, ed. Jeremy W. Crampton and Stuart Elden (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2007), 291-315;
17. Gerry Kearns, "The History of Medical Geography after Foucault," in Space, Knowledge, and Power, ed. Crampton and Elden, 205-22
18. and many of the individual chapters in Colin Jones and Roy Porter, eds. Reassessing Foucault: Power, Medicine, and the Body (London: Routledge, 1994);
19. Alan Petersen and Robin Bunton, eds. Foucault, Health and Medicine (London: Routledge, 1997).
20. see "Governmentality," 229-45.
21. Indeed, a good number of these surveys actually reached publication even prior to the state's 1923 declaration, such as Dr. Besim Zühtü, Türkiye'nin Si{dotless}hhî-i İçtimaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}: Hamidabad (Isparta) Sancaǧi{dotless} (Ankara: Öǧüd Matbaasi{dotless}, 1338/1922);
22. Dr. Hifzi Nuri, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İçtimaî Coǧrafyasi: Kayseri Sancaǧi (Ankara: Öǧüd Matbaasi{dotless}, 1338/1922);
23. Dr. Kemal, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İçtimaî Coǧrafyasi: Kastamonu Vilayeti (Ankara: Öǧüd Matbaasi, 1338/1922);
24. Dr. Nazmi, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İçtimaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}: Konya Vilayeti (Ankara: Öǧüd Matbaasi{dotless}, 1338/1922).
25. Such descriptive surveys of the socio-medical geographies were provided by Gümüşçü, "Milli Mücadele Dönemi Türkiye Coǧrafyasi{dotless} İçin Bilinmeyen Bir Kaynak, 'Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İçtimaî Coǧ rafyasi{dotless},'" Atatürk Araşti{dotless}rma Merkezi Dergisi, 1999, 15, 939-69;
26. M. Sabri Koz, "Türk Halk Kültürün'ün Unutulmuş Kaynaklari{dotless}ndan Biri: 'Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İçtimaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless},'" in IV. Milletlerarasi{dotless} Türk Halk Kültürü Kongresi Bildirileri (published conference proceedings) (Ankara: Feryal Matbaasi{dotless}, 1992), 37-58.
27. Türkan Doǧruöz, "Ki{dotless}rklareli Tarihine Işi{dotless}k Tutacak Bir Eser: Türkiye'nin Si{dotless}hhi-i İçtimai Coǧrafyasi{dotless} Ki{dotless}rklareli Vilayeti," Hist. Stud., 2011, 3, 275-84.
28. Dr. Mehmet Hayri, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İç timaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}: Niǧde Sancaǧi{dotless}, trans. İlhan Gedik (Niǧde: n.p., 1994/1338/1922 original);
29. Dr. Mehmet Ali, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İçtimaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}: Çatalca Vilayeti, trans. M. Sabri Koz (Istanbul: Çatalca Belediye Başkanli{dotless}ǧi{dotless}, 1991/1341/1922 original).
30. Muslihiddin Safvet, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İç timaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}.
31. Dr. Hasan Tahsin, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İç timaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}: Sivas Vilâyeti (Istanbul: Hilâl Matbaasi{dotless}, 1932).
32. see Tim Brown and Graham Moon, "From Siam to New York: Jacques May and the 'Foundation' of Medical Geography," J. Hist. Geog., 2004, 30, 747-63. (Pubitemid 40678510)
33. James C. Thomas, Michele Clark, Jadis Robinson, Martha Monnett, Peter H. Kilmarx, and Thomas A. Peterman, "The Social Ecology of Syphilis," Soc. Sci. Med., 1999, 48, 1081-94. (Pubitemid 29147330)
34. On the origins of Ankara and the early Turkish nation-state, note the following works İlhan Tekeli and Tari{dotless}k Okyay, "Case Study of a Relocated Capital: Ankara," in Urban Planning Practice in Developing Countries, ed. John L. Taylor and David G. Williams (Oxford: Pergamon, 1982), 123-43;
35. Gönül Tankut, Bir Başkentin İmari{dotless}, Ankara: 1929-1939 (Istanbul: Anahtar Kitablar, 1993);
36. Kyle T. Evered, "Symbolizing a Modern Anatolia: Ankara as Capital in Turkey's Early Republican Landscape," Comp. Stud. South Asia, Africa, Middle East, 2008, 28, 326-41;
37. several of the chapters in Erdal Yavuz and Ümit Nevzat Uǧurel, eds. Tarih İçinde Ankara (Ankara: Orta Doǧu Teknik Üniversitesi, 1984).
38. Speaking to these enduring disparities between urban policy formulation and rural policy application in Turkey, one historian wrote, "If we take something like electrification as a measure of modernization, we note that as late as 1953 the total number of villages that had been linked up to the electric grid was ten, or 0.025 per cent of Turkey's 40,000 villages!" Erik J. Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 206.
39. see Phillip Howell, Geographies of Regulation: Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Britain and the Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
40. Kemalism refers to the modernist ideology promulgated under the tutelage of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) (1881-1938), the founder and leader of the early Turkish republic.
41. For over a decade, critical evaluations of the modernist, state-building Kemalist project have come to characterize a significant body of scholarship on the Turkish republic-to which this article also contributes. Seminal in this body of literature were the studies in Sibel Bozdoǧan and Reşat Kasaba, eds. Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997).
42. see K. T. Evered, "Symbolizing a Modern Anatolia."
43. While there were many examples of such accounts of republican triumphs over the shortcomings of the empire that were published by the Ministry of Health and Social Assistance and other governmental bodies-to include photo albums, as examples pertinent to our study, we would point to the two special anniversary issues (one for the tenth year and the other for the twenty-fifth year of the republic) of the Turkish medical journal and circular Si{dotless}hhiye Mecmuasi{dotless} (later published as Saǧli{dotless}k Dergisi);
44. Si{dotless}hhiye Mecmuasi{dotless}, Fevkalâde Nüshasi{dotless} : Vekâletin 10 Yi{dotless}lli{dotless}k Mesaisi (Istanbul: Hilâl Matbaasi{dotless}, 1933);
45. Saǧli{dotless}k Dergisi, Fevkalâde Nüsha, 1948, 22, no. 10-11.
46. Significant examples of such statements as to the republic's perceived population crisis can be found in the many papers presented at the nation-state's first medical congress, as held in September 1925 in Ankara. The proceedings from this congress were published the following year
47. see Anon., ed. Birinci Millî Türk Ti{dotless}b Kongresi (1-3 Eylul 1925) (Istanbul: Kader Matbaasi{dotless}, 1926).
48. see Kyle T. Evered and Emine Ö. Evered, "Governing Population, Public Health, and Malaria in the Early Turkish Republic," J. Hist. Geog., 2011, available online at: doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2011.02.002 (accessed August 16, 2011).
49. see Quétel, History of Syphilis, 9-130;
50. J. D. Oriel, The Scars of Venus: A History of Venereology (London: Springer-Verlag, 1994);
51. Peter Lewis Allen, The Wages of Sin: Sex and Disease, Past and Present (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).
52. see Alex Dracobly, "Theoretical Change and Therapeutic Innovation in the Treatment of Syphilis in Mid-Nineteenth-Century France," J. Hist. Med. Allied Sci., 2004, 59, 522-54. (Pubitemid 41319460)
53. Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity (New York: W.W. Norton, 1999), 167.
54. Brandt, No Magic Bullet, 40-47.
55. Porter, Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine (New York: W.W. Norton, 2002), 158.
56. Brandt, No Magic Bullet, 40-47.
57. George Rosen, A History of Public Health (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 74.
58. On this matter of choice, or how some construe there to be adverse consequences to free will, note themes from U.S. history that were covered in many of the chapters in Charles E. Rosenberg, Explaining Epidemics and Other Studies in the History of Medicine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
59. see Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, 420-25.
60. see Judith R. Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980);
61. Howell, Geographies of Regulation.
62. see Müge Özbek, "The Regulation of Prostitutes in Beyoǧlu," Mid. East. Stud., 2010, 46, 555-68. For greater discussion of prostitution in contexts of the Ottoman Empire
63. see Ri{dotless}fat N. Bali, The Jews and Prostitution in Constantinople, 1854-1922 (Istanbul: Isis Press, 2008);
64. Elyse Semerdjian, Off the Straight Path: Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2008);
65. Fariba Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 1700-1800 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010).
66. Muslihiddin Safvet, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İç timaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}, 91.
67. see Laura Engelstein, The Keys to Happiness: Sex and the Search for Modernity in Fin-De-Siècle Russia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992).
68. Muslihiddin Safvet, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İç timaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}, 55-56.
69. Muslihiddin Safvet, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İç timaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}, 55-56.
70. Muslihiddin Safvet, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İç timaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}.
71. Dr. Ahmet Hamdi, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İçtimaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}: Ki{dotless}rkkilise (Ki{dotless}rklareli) Vilayeti (Istanbul: Kaǧi{dotless}çi{dotless}li{dotless}k ve Matbaaci{dotless}li{dotless}k Anonim Şirketi, 1341/1925);
72. Dr. Esad, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İçtimaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}: Muǧla (Menteşe) Sancaǧ i{dotless} (Ankara: Öǧüd Matbaasi{dotless}, 1339/1923);
73. Hi{dotless}fzi{dotless} Nuri, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İçtimaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}.
74. Muslihiddin Safvet, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İç timaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}, 92.
75. The significant presence of physicians in the parliament of the early republic was observed and discussed in Melih Ti{dotless}nal, "Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi Birinci Döneminde Doktor Milletvekilleri," Uluslararasi{dotless} Sosyal Araşti{dotless}rmalar Dergisi, 2009, 2/6, 617-27. Beyond these examples, we would also note that Dr. Refik (Saydam)-successor to Dr. Adnan (Adi{dotless}var) as director of the Ministry of Health and Social Assistance-even rose to become the nation-state's fourth Prime Minister (1939-42).
76. Among imperial efforts to legislate sexual health, we might recall the Ottoman Empire's 1884 Venereal Disease Law as but one example; addressed in Özbek, "The Regulation of Prostitutes in Beyoǧlu."
77. see Maggie O'Neill, Prostitution and Feminism: Towards a Politics of Feeling (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001). For additional analysis of the socio-political geographies of regulationist perspectives, past and present
78. see also Phillip Howell, "Race, Space and the Regulation of Prostitution in Colonial Hong Kong," Urb. Hist., 2004, 31, 229-48 (Pubitemid 40273489)
79. Howell, Geographies of Regulation. Specific to the French experience with regulation
80. see Alain Corbin, Women for Hire: Prostitution and Sexuality in France after 1850, trans. Alan Sheridan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990);
81. Jill Harsin, Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Paris (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985).
82. "Saǧli{dotless}k İşleri Genel Müdürlüǧünün Çali{dotless} şmalari{dotless}," Saǧli{dotless}k Dergisi, Fevkalâde Nüsha, 1948, 22, no. 10-11, 10-45, 24.
83. As related in Si{dotless}hhiye Mecmuasi{dotless}, Fevkalâde Nüshasi{dotless}, 59.
84. Shortly after the law's April 24, 1930, passage, it was published for general distribution in the country in the state's official gazette;
85. Resmî Gazete, May 6, 1930, no. 1489.
86. Sven Christiansen, "A Report on Syphilis Control in Turkey," Bull. World Health Organ., 1954, 10, 627-90. Christiansen's rendering of these articles, however, seemed to derive from information provided at the time by the Turkish state and his text omitted many clauses (e.g., those pertaining to midwives, among others) to the particular articles cited by him and addressed in this article.
87. "Vekâletin 12 Teşrinievvel 1933 Tarihli Hi{dotless}fzi{dotless}si{dotless}hha No. 510 Tamimi," Si{dotless}hhiye Mecmuasi{dotless}, Vol. 9, no. 65 (Kânunuevvel 1933), 293.
88. "Hi{dotless}fzi{dotless}si{dotless}hha No. 382 Tamimi," Si{dotless}hhiye Mecmuasi{dotless}, 1932, 8, no. 58 (Aǧustos 1932), 229-30.
89. "Hi{dotless}fzi{dotless}si{dotless}hha No. 450 Tamimi," Si{dotless}hhiye Mecmuasi{dotless}, 1933, 9, no. 63 (Haziran 1933), 121-22.
90. "Umumî Hi{dotless}fzi{dotless}si{dotless}hha Kanunun Tatbikine Dair Tamim, No. 22," Si{dotless}hhiye Mecmuasi{dotless}, 1931, 7, no. 52 (Aǧustos 1931), 277.
91. "Evlenme Muayenesi Hakki{dotless}nda Nizamname, Karar No. 11682," Si{dotless}hhiye Mecmuasi{dotless}, 1931, 7, no. 54 (Kânunuevvel 1931), 458-61.
92. "Hi{dotless}fzi{dotless}si{dotless}hha No. 392 Tamimi," Si{dotless}hhiye Mecmuasi{dotless}, 1932, 8, no. 59 (Teşrinievvel 1932), 275-76.
93. This specific article in the law regarding prostitution and prostitution-related diseases was elaborated upon in detail by the state in 1933 and published thereafter in Si{dotless}hhiye Mecmuasi{dotless} (i.e., "Fuhuşla ve Fuhuş Yüzünden Bulaşan Zührevî Hastali{dotless}klarla Mücadele Nizamnamesi, Kararname No. 15264," Si{dotless}hhiye Mecmuasi{dotless}, 1933, 9, no. 65 [Kânunuevvel 1933], 250-82);
94. Foucault, "Governmentality," 229-30.
95. see Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971).
96. Foucault, "Governmentality," 229.
97. Beyond our own inquiry into matters of education with regard to governance and public health, there are, however, many other trajectories of study that engage with the role of education and health. For example, we might note those pertaining to sex education. See, Alexandra M. Lord, "Models of Masculinity: Sex Education, the United States Public Health Service, and the YMCA, 1919-1924," J. Hist. Med. Allied Sci., 2003, 58, 123-52.
98. we also note profound parallels between the politics of Turkish public health and the politics of similar "ultra-modernist" projects for development, as per James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998)-though we would avoid assessing it in terms of absolute success or failure.
99. As depicted in Nazmi, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İç timaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}, 20.
100. Dracobly, "Theoretical Change and Therapeutic Innovation in the Treatment of Syphilis in Mid-Nineteenth-Century France," 552.
101. Parascandola, Sex, Sin, and Science, 80-81.
102. Also noted in, Nazmi, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İç timaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}, 20.
103. see Ahmet Hamdi, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İçtimaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}, 42-43.
104. Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İçtimaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}: Ki{dotless}rşehri Vilayeti (Istanbul: Kaǧi{dotless}çi{dotless}li{dotless}k ve Matbaaci{dotless} li{dotless}k Anonim Şirketi, 1341/1925), 49-50.
105. Muslihiddin Safvet, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İç timaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}, 63-64.
106. Such as the state's monthly journal Si{dotless}hhiye Mecmuasi{dotless}.
107. George S. Luckett and Harold F. Gray, The Elements of Public Health Administration (Philadelphia: P. Blakiston's Son and Company, 1923).
108. Dr. Refik (Saydam), foreword to Luckett and Gray, Si{dotless}hhat-i İçtimaîye İdaresi Esasati{dotless}, trans. (Istanbul: Hamid Matbaasi{dotless}, 1926), 2.
109. As we cite from the 1926 edition that was translated into Ottoman Turkish, often "it [i.e., syphilis] harms ten percent of the population, and once a person acquires syphilis, it continues to harm the second or third generations." Luckett and Gray, Si{dotless}hhat-i İçtimaî ye İdaresi Esasati{dotless}, 327.
110. By this time, globally, early educational films were emerging as a popular form of public health instruction (and, likely, entertainment), as observed in Jean B. Pinney, "The Motion Picture and Social-Hygiene Education," J. Educ. Sociol., 1936, 10, 158-67. Indeed, one of the French films of 1927 that Pinney includes (though only by its English-language title "The Three Friends," 158). "Il était une fois trios amis," rendered something of a morality tale-not so much about sexuality but about being tested and undergoing proper treatment. This film reportedly was shown in Ankara, though its copy quickly began to break and required frequent splicing (noted in Muslihiddin Safvet, Türkiye'nin Sihhî-i İçtimaî Coǧrafyasi{dotless}). However, most villages were too distant and resources (including power) were too scarce to enable such methods (recall above footnote from Zürcher's Turkey regarding the delayed pace of electrification in the republic).
111. see Foucault, "Governmentality," 241.
112. see David N. Livingstone, Putting Science in Its Place: Geographies of Scientific Knowledge (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).
113. see Anti-Slavery International, Forced Prostitution in Turkey: Women in the Genelevs: A Report (London: Anti-Slavery International, 1993)
114. Sema Erder and Selmin Kaska, Irregular Migration and Trafficking in Women: The Case of Turkey (Geneva: International Organization for Migration, 2003).