DAVID H. NUTTING AND TWO OTTOMAN CITIES: DİYARBAKIR, BİTLİS (1854-1864)

Abstract

This article aims to portray the sociological and urban conditions as well as the geographical features of the two Ottoman cities, Diyarbakır and Bitlis, through the eyes of American missionary physician David H. Nutting and his working conditions in the third quarter of the nineteenth century (1854-1860). This testimony, with its high level of education, watchful eyes and narratives is particularly noteworthy. Indeed, due to the missionary physician's medical knowledge and the needs of the society for this, he could meet people from quite different social classes and wrote down his observations in great detail. This study, first of all, endeavours to describe the process of Dr.Nutting and his family’s departure from America and their arrival in the Ottoman Empire briefly. Afterwards, the letters which he started to write in Diyarbakır are examined for certain themes aside from detailed transfers on medical science. These themes shaped by the relationships that he had with the Muslim and especially the Armenian community and its leaders, as a physician and protestant, the geographical and architectural features of the cities and their reflections on human health. Finally, it should be noted that his observations and thoughts about Bitlis are handled more limitedly, since he was in Bitlis for a much shorter time than in Diyarbakır.