Orthopaedic techniques of Sabuncuoğlu in the 15th century Ottoman period.

Abstract

Serefeddin Sabuncuoğlu (1385-1468) was the author of the surgical textbook Cerrahiyyetü'l-Haniyye (Imperial Surgery). It was the first illustrated surgical textbook in the Turkish-Islamic medical literature. Cerrahiyyetü'l-Haniyye is significant because it includes Sabuncuoğlu's color illustrations of surgical procedures, incisions, fracture dislocation reduction techniques, and instruments. There are only three handwritten copies. Two originally were written by Sabuncuoğlu and are exhibited in Paris and Istanbul. The book was rediscovered in 1936, but some parts are suspected to be missing. The book currently consists of three chapters divided into 193 sections. The third chapter includes orthopaedics and traumatology, reduction techniques of lower and upper extremities, fractures and dislocations, and relevant Greek, Arabic, and Persian textbooks are cited. Sabuncuoğlu also wrote about surgical treatment of congenital hand anomalies. He was the first to advise placing a wooden splint under the palmar side after hand surgery. We reviewed the sections of Cerrahiyyetü'l-Haniyye related to orthopaedics and traumatology. Compared with previous writings by Hippocrates, Ibn-i Sina, and Al-Zahrawi, there are no major differences in the treatment of fracture dislocations.