TOXICOLOGY IN POISONOUS YEARS: SüMUM VE TESEMMüMAT, DAMASCUS / BEIRUT 1918

Dr. Süleyman Rifat (Suleiman Rifaat) graduated from the Civilian Medical School in Istanbul in 1906. In 1909 he was elected by the Ministry of Education to study in Germany. Süleyman Rifat attended the Institute of Pharmacology in Berlin and specialised in pharmacodynamics, toxicology and immunology. After his return in 1913 he was appointed to Palestine as health authority in Jerusalem. In the same year he joined the staff of the Ottoman Medical School in Damascus as professor of materia medica and therapeutics. With the beginning of the First World War Süleyman Rifat was conscripted to serve in the IVth Army in the Sinai. He was the instructor for the cacolet transport services, and participated in the First Battle of the Suez Canal 1915. When the Ottoman Medical School was relocated in Beirut Dr. Süleyman Rifat was discharged to join its staff as professor of pharmacodynamics and therapy. Here he edited a compendium on poisons and intoxication consisting of tables, entitled Sümum ve Tesemmümat (Poisons et Empoisonnements). Certain elements of this text relates to the chemical warfare engaged by the British forces in the Second and Third Gaza Battles in 1917. Dr. Süleyman Rifat lived in Beirut after the Great War and converted to the Baha’i Faith