Medical Advancements in the Ottoman Empire

In 1717, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, wrote a letter to a friend describing a new medical procedure related to smallpox, a disease that was highly fatal and widespread in Europe at the time. Her letter provides insight into the cultural differences between the Ottoman Empire and Europe.

Source 1

The small-pox, so fatal, and so general amongst us, is here entirely harmless, by the invention of engrafting, which is the term they give it. There is a set of old women, who make it their business to perform the operation . . . the old woman comes with a nut-shell full of the matter of the best sort of small-pox, and asks what vein you please to have opened. She immediately rips open that you offer to her, with a large needle (which gives you no more pain than a common scratch) and puts into the vein as much matter as can lie upon the head of her needle . . . There is no example of any one that has died in it, and you may believe I am well satisfied of the safety of this experiment, since I intend to try it on my dear little son.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Letter to Friend, 1717

Question 1

Short answer

Identify one medical advancement described in the excerpt.

Question 2

Short answer

Explain one way that the medical advancement described in the excerpt changed life in Europe.

Question 3

Short answer

Explain the impact of another type of knowledge from the Islamic world that benefited European society between 1450 and 1750.

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