turkish historical review 5 (2014) 32-58 © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi 10.1163/18775462-00501006 brill.com/thr The Social History of Surgery in Ottoman Syria: Documentary Evidence From Eighteenth-Century Hamah Boris Liebrenz Orientalisches Institut, Universität Leipzig, Germany liebrenz@rz.uni-leipzig.de Abstract Little is known about the role of surgery in pre-modern medical practice in general, and in the lands under Muslim dominance in particular. There is an acknowledged gap between theoretical knowledge and medical practice, but evidence of the latter is difficult to find. Many fundamental questions therefore remain unanswered. For example, was there a division of labour between surgeons and physicians? We are also mostly ignorant about who practiced surgery, the legal context surrounding this practice, and its financial aspects. This article offers an analytical edition of two documents from the Syrian town Hamah dating from 1212/1798, which can help answer some of these questions. They concern a respected and learned physician who also personally performed the removal of bladder stones and was paid well for his services. Keywords surgery – lithotomy – bladder stone – medical practice – Ottoman Syria – Hamah Although several researchers have recently taken up the study of medicine in the lands under Muslim dominion with a view to highlighting its social history, our first-hand knowledge of medical practitioners, the conditions of their work, and their social standing remains scant. A relatively large amount has been written about medicine in the Ottoman period, but the focus has tended to be on the capital and major administrative centres. Our understanding of the work of physicians who practiced outside the centres of