A first look at the history of Turkish veterinary medicine with Mehmet Âkif (Ersoy)

Abstract

The history of the Agricultural and Civil Veterinary School in Halkalı, where Mehmet Âkif was a student first and then served as a lecturer, is in a very important place in terms of teaching veterinary medicine and agriculture in Turkey. The opening of the Halkalı Agricultural School and the opening of the Civil Veterinary School coincided with the same time period. The Civil Veterinary College was the partner of the Agricultural College opened in Halkalı in the first years. The Civilian Veterinary College was later moved to Sultanahmet, and agricultural education was continued in Halkalı. The teaching staff of the Halkalı Higher Agricultural College has published a journal called “Halkalı Ziraat Mekteb-i Âlisi Mecmuası”. Mehmet Âkif Bey (Ersoy), who was on the teaching staff of the College at that time, wrote an article containing the history of the School in the first issue of the Magazine. The article provides information about the Halkalı Agricultural College, as well as information about the beginning of the teaching of Civil Veterinary College. In the article, besides the information about Halkalı Higher Agricultural School, information about the beginning of civilian veterinary medicine education is also given. In this study, the relationship of Mehmet Âkif Ersoy's article, which was determined to be related to the history of the profession, with the research conducted on the teaching of veterinary medicine in Turkey and the history of agricultural teaching, was analyzed. The article, which contains information about Âkif's profession, was evaluated in terms of the history of veterinary medicine and presented to the field of science history and research ethics.