Portal:Biology/Featured biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tawfiq Canaan (24 September 1882 – 15 January 1964) was a physician and pioneer in the field of medicine in Palestine, also well-known for being one of the foremost researchers of Palestinian popular heritage.
A medical officer in the Ottoman army in World War I and the first President of the Palestine Arab Medical Association established in 1944, Canaan authored more than 37 studies over the course of his medical career on tropical medicine and bacteriology, particularly malaria, and other topics, such as leprosy, tuberculosis, and health in Palestine.
Canaan's keen interest in Palestinian folklore, popular beliefs, and superstitions led to his collection of over 1,400 amulets, now held by Bir Zeit university in Ramallah. His published analyses of these and other folk traditions brought him recognition as an ethnographer and anthropologist. A member of the Palestine Oriental Society and The American School for Oriental Research, Canaan published a number of books and more than 50 articles in English and German on folklore and superstition that have served as valuable resources to researchers of Palestinian and Middle Eastern heritage ever since.
Canaan was also a Palestinian nationalist and outspoken public figure who wrote two books on the Palestine problem, which reflected his involvement in confronting British imperialism and Zionism. Arrested by the British authorities in 1939, his family home and clinic in Jerusalem destroyed during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Canaan nevertheless managed to re-establish his life and career there. After taking sanctuary in a convent in the Old City with his family for two years, they eventually took up residence on the grounds of the Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives where Canaan served as the Director, and where they lived through his retirement until his death in 1964.
