How the Edirne Darüşşifa cared for people in mental distress with water and music, what Evliya Çelebi wrote, and how this history differs from today's science.
Most people who visit Edirne for the day tour the Selimiye Mosque, eat the city's famous fried liver and head home in the late afternoon. Those who add the Bayezid II Complex to their route, however, come across something quite different: a hospital where, centuries ago, people in mental distress are said to have been cared for with the sound of water, music and the scent of flowers. The Edirne Darüşşifa (a historical hospital) can be visited today as the Health Museum of Trakya University, and it tends to leave visitors with the same questions: What really happened here? Did music actually heal people? How well documented is all of this? In this article we look calmly at what the sources say, which stories cannot be verified, and how this history relates to our present-day understanding of mental health.
What Is the Edirne Darüşşifa? A Hospital Within a Complex
The Edirne Darüşşifa is part of the complex built by Sultan Bayezid II and completed in 1488. Ottoman complexes (külliye) were not single buildings but groups of institutions that complemented one another: a mosque, a madrasa, a soup kitchen, a guesthouse and a hospital could all sit under the roof of the same charitable foundation. In the Bayezid Complex, too, the hospital was a health institution standing side by side with spaces for learning and worship.
Sources report that this hospital served for around four hundred years. That is an exceptionally long life for an institution; it means that many generations of patients, physicians and attendants passed through these courtyards. Today the building has been arranged as the Health Museum of Trakya University and is regarded as one of Turkey's important stops for anyone interested in Ottoman medical history.
The first thing that comes to mind when people mention the Edirne Darüşşifa is the care shown to people with mental illness. It is also the aspect that draws most attention in historical writing and in the museum's own presentation: the accounts of patients in mental distress being looked after with the sound of water, music and pleasant scents.
The Idea of the Darüşşifa: Foundations, Free Care and Thinking of the Whole Person
The word "darüşşifa" means "house of healing". The same type of institution is also called a "bimaristan", "bimarhane" or "şifahane". Examples existed in Anatolia from the Seljuk period onwards; the hospitals of Gevher Nesibe in Kayseri and Divriği in Sivas are among the most famous.
The tradition continued in the Ottoman period. The hospital in Amasya is known as the place where the celebrated surgeon Şerefeddin Sabuncuoğlu worked and where, in 1465, he wrote his illustrated book on surgery. The Hafsa Sultan Darüşşifa in Manisa operated as a mental hospital for roughly the last two hundred years of its life, and there, too, care is said to have included handicrafts, music and the sound of water. The Fatih and Süleymaniye hospitals in Istanbul are also counted among the institutions where music was used, although some of the details about them have not yet been adequately verified. Edirne is one of the most frequently described links in this chain, and today one of the easiest to visit.
What these hospitals had in common was that they were founded through charitable endowments (vakıf). A benefactor or ruler would endow income-generating property, and that income covered the salaries of physicians and attendants as well as medicine, food and cleaning. The service was free of charge. In this sense the darüşşifa was not only a medical institution but also an institutional expression of society's responsibility towards the sick and those with no one to look after them.
Looking back from today, another striking point is that body and mind were considered together. The medicine of the period was based on the theory of the four humours (blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile) and temperament, inherited from Hippocrates and Galen. According to this theory, health depended on the balance of fluids in the body, and sound, scent, food and surroundings could all affect that balance. Modern medicine abandoned this theory long ago; yet it carries some traces of what we now call "holistic care", the idea of looking not only at a patient's illness but also at their surroundings and their day.
Water, Music and Scent at the Edirne Darüşşifa
Three elements stand out in the accounts of the Edirne Darüşşifa:
- The sound of water: The sound of running water is said to have been used as part of creating a peaceful environment.
- Music: Patients are reported to have been played music on instruments such as the ney (reed flute), the oud and the rebab.
- Scent and flowers: Flowers and pleasant scents are said to have been part of the care.
The thinking behind these accounts fits the outlook of the time: the surroundings of a person in mental distress are arranged, noise and chaos are reduced, and calm stimuli that appeal to the senses are offered. In today's language, this was a kind of "environmental adjustment" and "sensory soothing".
Here, however, an important distinction needs to be made. The fact that music was played somewhere does not mean that the music cured a particular illness. People of that era believed music was good for the soul; it is clear that this belief existed and was put into practice. But there is no record, comparison or measurement, in today's sense, of what results this practice produced in which patients.
Knowing that music was played in the Edirne hospital is a historical fact; claiming that the music cured illnesses there is a claim our sources cannot carry.
This distinction matters not in order to belittle the history of the Edirne Darüşşifa, but to appreciate it for the right reasons. Offering a patient a quiet courtyard, a clean room, regular meals and a pleasant sound was a humane approach five hundred years ago, and it still is today.
What Does Evliya Çelebi Say? Between Documents and Legends
The most frequently quoted source on the Edirne Darüşşifa is the Seyahatname (Book of Travels) of the Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi. According to encyclopaedic sources, Evliya Çelebi writes that an ensemble of musicians came three days a week to perform music for the patients. The entry on the darüşşifa in the TÜBİTAK Encyclopaedia also states that the mentally ill were treated with music performed by singers and instrumentalists who came three days a week.
Two points deserve attention here. First, Evliya Çelebi was a traveller whose accounts at times have an exaggerated, literary style; historians regard what he reports as valuable testimony, but testimony that needs to be compared with other sources. Second, the phrase "were treated" reflects the understanding of the period; it is not evidence of recovery in today's medical sense.
Some details often found online are even less certain. For example, the story that "a ten-member ensemble of singers and musicians played a different makam (melodic mode) for each illness" is widespread, but it is not supported by a reliable, verified primary source. Details like this should be read as "it is said that", and not passed on as established fact.
In short, this is what we can say with confidence about the Edirne Darüşşifa: that music was played for patients in mental distress there is known from Evliya Çelebi's account and from encyclopaedic sources. Details such as which makam was played for which patient remain disputed.
Separating History from Today's Science: How Reliable Are the Makam Lists?
If you leave the museum and search "makam and illness" on your phone, you may come across lists such as "the rast makam is good for paralysis" or "the buselik makam is good for headaches". These lists originate in treatises on music and medicine written in the Ottoman period or attributed to it. There are, however, several important problems:
- The lists contradict one another; the same makam is matched with different complaints in different places.
- These pairings rest on the abandoned theory of temperaments.
- They have not been tested with scientific methods, that is, with comparative and controlled research.
For this reason these lists can be read as an interesting document of cultural history, but they cannot be used as health advice. Telling a relative who has had a stroke to "listen to rast" cannot replace the medical care they need. We discuss this subject in detail in our article on the effects of makams on people.
So what do we know today about music and mental health? Music therapy is now defined as an approach in which a trained practitioner engages in musical interaction with the client within a therapeutic framework. According to a Cochrane review, music therapy added to usual care may reduce symptoms of depression in the short term; however, this evidence has been rated as low to moderate in certainty. In other words, music can be a supportive element; it does not replace medication, psychotherapy or medical care. If you are curious about how today's approach works, you can read our article on music therapy.
This is exactly where the difference lies between what was done in Edirne centuries ago and what is done today: back then there was belief and observation; today there is research that tries to measure under which conditions, for whom and to what extent there is a benefit.
What to Look Out for When Visiting the Health Museum
When the Edirne Darüşşifa is visited as a museum today, visitors see both the architecture and displays that bring the care of the period to life. A few suggestions to make your visit more meaningful:
- Listen to the sound of the space. Stand quietly for a while and notice the acoustics, how sound travels across the stone walls. Imagining what someone staying here centuries ago would have heard makes history more tangible.
- Read stories and documents separately. Do not hesitate to ask which pieces of information on the panels and in the guides' accounts rest on documents and which on legend.
- Watch out for stigmatising language. Words such as "deli" or "divane" (madman, lunatic) may appear in historical sources. They were the language of the time; today we use more respectful and accurate language when we speak about people experiencing mental difficulties.
- If you are visiting with children, you could ask them, "How do you think people who were sad or very troubled were looked after here?" This is a lovely way to start an age-appropriate conversation about mental health.
- Think about your own day. As you leave the museum, you might ask yourself: Which sounds, scents and places calm me in my own life? This question is a small self-care exercise reaching from history into the present.
Imagine a family who have come from Istanbul for the weekend, sitting in the courtyard at the end of their visit. Their twelve-year-old asks, "So did people get better when they listened to music?" The mother replies, "Maybe they relaxed a little; but the doctors had other work to do as well." This short exchange actually sums up the balance between history and science very nicely.
How Does Mental Health Support Work Today? When Should You Seek Help?
The Edirne Darüşşifa is a sign of a past in which mental distress was not ignored but accepted as a condition requiring care. The same principle applies today: mental difficulty is not a weakness but a condition that calls for attention and support.
If you notice any of the following in yourself or someone close to you, talking to a mental health professional may be helpful:
- Low mood, lack of motivation or hopelessness lasting more than two weeks
- Marked changes in sleep, appetite or daily functioning
- Intense anxiety, restlessness or thoughts that feel uncontrollable
- Experiences such as losing touch with reality or hearing voices that others do not hear
- Thoughts of harming yourself or ending your life
If the last point applies, call 112 (emergency services) without delay or go to the nearest emergency department.
In Turkey, many people still tend to put off seeking mental health support. Thoughts such as "What will people say?", "We don't talk about things like this in our family" or "It will pass if I rest a little" can delay reaching out for help by months or even years. Yet the fact that separate care was planned for people in mental distress even five hundred years ago is a reminder that there is nothing shameful about this subject. Mental health, just like physical health, is an area that calls for attention and effort; the earlier difficulties are noticed, the easier it becomes for a person to draw on their own resources.
In psychological support today, music, drawing or other creative activities can play a supportive role alongside evidence-based therapies. In a course of therapy, for example, a person might talk about noticing the music that calms them or adding small sound-related breaks to their daily routine. The core work, however, is a structured process focused on the person's thoughts, feelings, behaviours and relationships. In individual therapy, self-care tools like these can be explored in line with the person's own preferences.
Frequently Asked Questions
When was the Edirne Darüşşifa built and how long did it operate?
The hospital, part of the Bayezid II Complex, was completed together with the complex in 1488. Sources report that it served for around four hundred years. Today the building is used as the Health Museum of Trakya University.
Were patients in Edirne really treated with music?
That music was played for patients in mental distress is known from Evliya Çelebi's account and from encyclopaedic sources. However, there is no evidence in today's sense that this music cured illnesses; it should be read as the belief and practice of its time.
Is it true that certain makams are good for certain illnesses?
These pairings appear in historical treatises and contradict one another from source to source. They have not been tested scientifically, so they should not be used as health advice. Music can support mood, but it does not replace medical treatment.
Is the Health Museum suitable to visit with children?
It is generally suitable and can be a good opportunity to open an age-appropriate conversation about mental health. Meeting your child's questions with curiosity helps show that mental difficulties are not something to be ashamed of but something to be looked after.
Bu yazı genel bilgilendirme amaçlıdır; tanı veya tedavi yerine geçmez. Yaşadığınız güçlükler için bir ruh sağlığı uzmanına başvurmanız önerilir. Acil bir durumda lütfen 112'yi arayın.
Eda Erkan Alapala
Klinik Psikolog. İstanbul Kent Üniversitesi Klinik Psikoloji Tezli Yüksek Lisans mezunu; bilişsel davranışçı terapi, çocuk merkezli oyun terapisi ve çocuk-ergen psikoterapisi alanlarında eğitimlerini tamamlamıştır.
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