19th century slaughterhouse reform and its reflections in the Ottoman Empire

Providing food supplies has been one of the main concerns of the states, regardless of their regime. State administrators, as a way to ensure their legitimacy, were sensitive to meet the basic needs of the people and to make the necessary arrangements in this regard. After German chemist Justus von Liebig defined meat as a high protein source, the meat became one of the most basic nutritional resources the state had to provide. As it provides physical endurance and power required by working conditions, meat began to come first in the diets of the working class. Providing healty, cheap and abundant meat source, which is a need of the workin class –the majority of the population- turned into a serious obligation for states. Formerly, the meat required by the public was supplied by private butchers who performed the slaughtering in the areas of their shop’s courtyard. However, the increasing demand for meat due to the growth of the cities, led to the large number of farm animals being cut at the center of the cities every day. Thus, animal slaughtering turned into a problem requiring immediate intervention because it created an uncomfortable appearance and caused unhealthy environmental conditions. From the eighteenth century onwards, this problem began to be considered within the framework of a reform. The attempts of humanists were also influential in this evaluation. To provide meat in conditions that did not threaten the health of the people and did not harm the visual of the city, public slaughterhouses were opened. In this context, in this study, the slaughterhouse reform that emerged in response to the problem of the supply of meat was discussed. Within the scope of this reform, the cities of Vienna, Berlin, London and Chicago, which are among the largest metropolises in Europe, were examined. The reason for choosing these cities was that they had in abundant stock of farm animals and that slaughtering work was quite dense in these cities. In the same periods, the dynamics of the Ottoman Empire were researched and the original aspects of the Ottoman slaughterhouse reform were tried to be revealed through the comparisons made on these examples