“Iranian Conditions: Health Problems and Medical Practices in the Words of the Staff of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, 1900–1950”

Abstract

Abstract The staff of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU), an international educational philanthropy, were professionally and personally buffeted by health and medical concerns. This article examines the value of their letters, arguing they serve as a deep reservoir of biased yet valuable evidence that corroborates other sources while also providing insight into the health and disease conditions of Iran's provincial cities. This article also asks why, in the early twentieth century, AIU staff failed to acknowledge Iranians who were similarly invested in medical services and public hygiene. Ultimately, the letters help scholars witness historical evolutions in Iran and in the AIU staff's understandings of the Iranian social and medical landscape they inhabited.