Introduction: İstanbul Seririyatı (1919-1952) was a pioneering and comprehensive
medical journal in the field of neuropsychiatry in Türkiye. Published monthly
for 33 years, the journal comprises a total of 389 issues and over 10,000 pages.
This project aimed to digitize the entire archive of the journal and make it freely
accessible. This article provides an overview of the journal “Istanbul Seririyati” and
the website www.istanbulseririyati.com, where its archive has been recently made
available online, also addressing its historical context and significance.
Methods: The project, which spanned approximately six years, focused on locating
all issues of the journal and compiling a complete collection. The primary goal was
to obtain the most difficult-to-find Ottoman Turkish issues published between
1919 and 1929, which were collected from various individuals, institutions, libraries,
antiquarian booksellers, auctions, and online marketplaces. Once acquired, they
were professionally scanned and converted into PDF format. From 1929 onwards,
the journal was published in Latin-script Turkish, and Optical Character Recognition
(OCR) technology was applied to facilitate text searchability whenever possible.
The project was structured in four phases: identifying and gathering all journal
issues, scanning and digitalizing them, creating a detailed index for each issue, and
establishing an online platform for free and open access to the archive. For each
issue, the medical section has been indexed with details including the author, title,
and page numbers, and a structured keyword system was developed to enhance
searchability within the archive.
Results: The complete archive of İstanbul Seririyatı (www.istanbulseririyati.
com) has now been made available online. The website offers advanced search
functionalities based on year, issue, topic, author, concept, and keyword, ensuring
ease of use for both researchers and enthusiasts. Users can read journal issues
online and also download them. The website’s blog section features articles
exploring İstanbul Seririyatı’s historical legacy, examples from various years, and
in-depth discussions of its content. Moreover, selected articles from the 1919-1929
Ottoman Turkish issues have been transliterated into modern Turkish, making them
more accessible to contemporary readers. It can be said that a serious historical
gap in this field has been filled with online access to İstanbul Seririyatı, which sheds
light on the birth and development years of neuropsychiatry in Türkiye.
Conclusion: İstanbul Seririyatı serves as a vital resource for tracking discussions
and transformations in neuropsychiatry and various other branches of medicine.
The journal was organized into two main sections: medical and paramedical.
By bringing together physicians from various medical disciplines, particularly
neuropsychiatry, İstanbul Seririyatı served as a platform that functioned like a
school of thought, allowing young doctors to publish their first works and research,
ultimately shaping the future of the profession. The digitalization of such rare
collections ensures accessibility to valuable resources while preserving cultural
heritage and securely transmitting it to future generations. It is hoped that this
initiative will benefit not only today’s researchers but also future generations, as
İstanbul Seririyatı is now accessible to the neuropsychiatry community and anyone
interested in the accumulation and legacy of medical knowledge.
Keywords: Neuropsychiatry, Şişli müsamereleri, Mazhar Osman, history of
psychiatry, history of neurology, history of medicine