Physicians gained privileged access to Ottoman harems denied to other male travelers.
Evidence
Some travelers were doctors, and we hear of physicians who went touring in the Middle East, perhaps because they had been told that as physicians they had opportunities which no other westerner could hope to have. A fascinating Irish physician called R. R. Madden wrote a two-volume account of his travels in Turkey, Egypt, Nubia and Palestine between 1824 and 1827. These involved frequent visits to harems, which he was able to enter as a doctor, whereas other males were of course totally forbidden: he was entirely virtuous, he hastens to assure us. He felt the ladies’ pulses through a curtain, but was able to give some of the most interesting accounts of the harem. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 780
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- CANDY: The image of a doctor feeling ladies’ pulses through a curtain while assuring readers of his virtue is a delightfully absurd anecdote.
- SHARE: Worth sending to anyone interested in travel writing or Ottoman social history — the harem-pulse-through-curtain detail is the kind of thing that sticks.