Tawfik Canaan: A Pioneer Leishmaniologist from Palestine

Abstract

Tawfik Canaan was born in 1882 in Bet-Jala near Bethlehem in Palestine. He finished his schooling at Schneller School and traveled to Beirut in 1899 to complete his study in Medicine at the Syrian Protestant Collage. He graduated as a physician in 1905. Then, returned back to Al-Quds (Jerusalem) and worked in the German Hospital. In 1910 he became the director of the clinic of Al-Quds (Jerusalem) municipal hospital, Schaare Zedek. In 1912 he was married to a German and moved to Musrara neighborhood in Al-Quds (Jerusalem) where he established his own clinic in 1913. He specialized in tropical medicine and microbiology in Germany between 1912 and 1914. In 1914, he was appointed as a physician in the Turkish army in Nazareth and head of the Turkish army medical laboratories in Nablus, Beer al-Saba', Gaza and Al-Quds (Jerusalem).At the beginning of his carrier, Canaan became responsible for preparing vaccines and antibiotics at the health office in Al-Quds (Jerusalem). He was later appointed as the head of Malaria research branch. He got more and more involved in the medical activities and community health and therefore became director for the Leprosy Hospital in Talbiyyah in Al-Quds (Jerusalem) in 1919 and, later, in 1956, participated in building a new one near Birzeit near Ramallah. Following the 1948 political turmoil (Nakba), Canaan was appointed as head of the Lutheran World Federation medical operations to cope up with the efflux of refugees by mobilizing mobile clinics and building others