Knowing Qajar Era Translators in the field of Medicine through Thematic Analysis of their works

Abstract

The present study aims to introduce 14 prolific Qajar era translators in the field of medicine, analyzing their translated work as well as providing a concise history of medical translation in this era. This is a library research and its corpus is all medical books translated in this era and their translators. All available written records were investigated, and the relevant data were extracted. The findings indicate that during the Qajar period, 369 translators translated a total of 446 book titles in specialized medical subjects, most importantly in the field of psychiatry, skin diseases, surgery, modern medicine, dentistry, pathology etc. The most prolific among them was Mohammad Hossein Afshar who translated 11 book titles in various medical specialties, followed by Ali Hamedani and Ahmad Sharifi Tonkaboni with the translation of 9 and 6 book titles, respectively. The findings of this research suggest that despite the dearth of resources about the scientific and educational background of the translators, it is possible to speculate about their expertise and thematic interests in the translation of medical books by examining and thematizing their translated works.