Charaf ed-Din (1385–c.1468) was an innovative surgeon and a prominent illustrator who lived in the Ottoman Empire during the fifteenth century. His medical treatise, Cerrahiyyet’ül-Haniyye (Imperial Surgery, 1465), is the first illustrated surgical textbook written in Turkish. His book also provides comprehensive information about ancient Greek and Islamic knowledge of medicine, mostly based on the comprehensive Arabic medical text Kitab al-Tasrif (The Method of Medicine) by the physician Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (936–1013) [1, 2].

Fragments of the Charaf ed-Din's manuscript have been published in many books and translated into many languages. The manuscript is located at the Bibliotèque Nationale de France, Paris, France. Figure 1 reports a miniature of the Charaf ed-Din manuscript illustrating surgery for thyroid nodular goitre, according with Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi skills, performed using a knife similar to the Turkish sabre. The miniature has been published and discussed by Merke in his book on the history and iconography of the endemic goitre [3].

Fig. 1
figure 1

Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque Nationale de France)

Miniature author illustrating thyroid surgery (reproduced form Turkish Manuscript of Charaf ed-Din—Ms. Suppl. turc 693, Fol. 85.

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