[WW1 / EPIDEMIC DISEASES IN THE LEVANTINE PORTS] ALS by Mersin Governor Besim Bey, written on official letterhead during WW1, instructing the municipal medical office to administer cholera, smallpox, and typhoid vaccines to the local population

BESIM BEY (The governor of Mersin).

Mersin Sancağı Tahrirat Müdüriyeti, Mersin, AH 1332 [1916 CE].

Complete title: [WW1 / EPIDEMIC DISEASES IN MEDITERRANEAN PORTS / HISTORY OF MEDICINE Autograph letter written on a paper with letterhead of the "Mersin District Directorate of Correspondence" by the Mutasarrif (Governor) of Mersin, Besim Bey, addressed to the municipal medical office regarding the administration of cholera, smallpox, and typhoid vaccines to the local population during WW1.

An original Ottoman Turkish document written in ink on grid paper with an official stamped letterhead, 18 x 11 cm in size, consisting of 5 lines, signed “Mersin Mutasarrifi Arif Besim.”

A historically important autograph letter/document was written during WW1 by Besim Bey, the Mutasarrif (Governor) of Mersin, on official letterhead of the “Mersin District Directorate of Correspondence.” Addressed to the municipal medical office, it urgently calls for administering cholera, smallpox, and typhoid vaccines to the local population. This document provides insight into the state of epidemic diseases in Levantine port cities during the First World War and the preventative measures that were taken.

The cholera outbreak that emerged in 1892 in the northwestern provinces of India spread to many parts of the world through various routes and reached Ottoman territories via the Hajj pilgrimage from the Hejaz. By the summer of 1894, it had covered almost all of Anatolia and was reported in Tarsus (Mersin Sanjak) in 1895. The epidemic, which occasionally resurfaced until WW1, combined with other contagious diseases such as smallpox and typhoid, made the administration of vaccines, still relatively new at the time, a critical necessity. (Notably, Turkish physicians were among the early adopters of typhoid vaccination.).