Introduction: Medical Mobilities in the Modern Middle East and North Africa.

This themed section contributes to efforts to conceptualize medical mobility. It does so by observing medical histories within the Middle East while following concrete movements. This focus on what moves and how, rather than on largely static and fixed units of analysis on where to, is central to the studies in this issue. The location of the Middle East, as a crossroad for imperial mobilities-is ideal for exploring transnational medical movements. Bringing together historians of the Middle East and North Africa, the articles explore intersections among medicine, health, and the body and histories of cross-regional mobility. This section spans the period from the early twentieth century to the 1970s. The articles are based on primary sources in Greek, Turkish, English, French, Spanish, and Arabic, located in the national archives of the UK, Israel, and Cyprus; in French diplomatic and military archives; and in the Overseas Nursing Association's publications.

Between Colonial, National, and International Medicine: The Case of Bejel.

In the 1920s and 1930s, doctors stationed in the Middle East and North Africa debated whether bejel, a form of endemic syphilis, was an Arab version of syphilis, or a separate disease altogether. Using their clinical experience in the region, they tried to weave this unfamiliar phenomenon into a civilizational narrative, which placed European civilization at the top of a hierarchy. The assumption was that there was something inherent to Islamic societies and their hygienic habits that accounted for this difference. After World War II, the eradication of bejel was declared to be one of the objectives of both the Iraqi government and the newly founded World Health Organization. Examining the postwar life of bejel, I question how colonial legacies affected postcolonial and international medical theories and practices, on both national and international levels.