The center for the revival of Arab scientific heritage at the University of Baghdad has organized recently a workshop entitled “Methods of addressing epidemics in heritage” delivered by Prof. Dr. Saadi Ibrahim al-Darraji. The lecturer aimed to review the causes of a number of deadly epidemics common in Baghdad during the Ottoman era such as plague, cholera and smallpox that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century that witnessed the outbreak of (19) epidemics of plague, five of them were very widespread.
Then Dr. Saadi al-Darraji shed light on the ottoman and international measures and efforts taken at that time to control epidemics, including control of border crossing, the establishment of sanitary quarries, vaccination for possibly preventing infectious diseases, as well as other great efforts exerted by foreign physicians and diplomats, all of which led to the cessation of epidemics in Iraq. The lecturer also gave an overview on some health institutions that were present at the Ottoman era and their poor services to people, the lack of modern hospitals where there was only one hospital in Baghdad called “Hospital of Strangers”, founded by Midhat Pasha in 1872 and another military hospital, nothing that there was only three or four physicians in each hospital, which is not enough to treat hundreds of patients in Baghdad.
