Pharmacist Ethem Pertev

Mavi Boncuk |

 (pictured Ethem Pertev)

The famous cosmetic cream, Krem Pertev, was produced by one of the early pharmacists of Turkey, Ethem Pertev. He was born in 1871 After the death of Ethem Bey, his children continued to run his pharmacy in Aksaray, and sold the Bosphorus Yali mansion in 1932 to a ship's captain. Built in the Art Nouveau architectural style, this yali has been successfully renovated in recent years.[1]

[1] As Murat and Nina Koprulu were deciding to invest in a summer home away from Manhattan, they figured that it made sense to embrace their family histories: Her mother is an archaeologist working at sites like Petra in Jordan; his ancestors were powerful grand viziers to the Ottoman sultans.

The urge led them to buy a crumbling property in Istanbul known as the Ethem Pertev Yali, on the Asian shore of the winding Bosporus. It also produced a four-year challenge that proved nearly as circuitous as the waterway itself, as the project stretched into a multimillion-dollar, down-to-the-bedrock reconstruction. The yali’s interiors were designed by Mica Ertegun, an interior designer and widow of Ahmet Ertegun, founder of Atlantic Records.

"More importance was atached to the oral and dental cleaning aer the discovery of microorganisms, since mouth consituted an entrance for germs and a transmission route for diseases such as cholera, dysentery, diphtheria, and tuberculosis. The producion of tooth powder, tooth paste and brush, and mouthwash became widespread. These developments aected the Otoman Empire to a certain extent. Specic preparaions replaced the recommendaions and compounds in the handwriten manuscripts. While the medical journals published novel formulas, the foreign denists who came to Istanbul to work in the 19 th and the early 20 th century brought new dental care products and tried to sell them by newspaper adverisements. These products were mostly imported from Europe. Pharmacist Edhem Pertev began to produce Pertev Diş Macunu (Pertev toothpaste), the first domesic dental care product in the Otoman Empire, in Pertev Pharmaceuical Producion Plant (1895). The development of the domesic industry was promoted since the early years of the Republic, and this yielded an increase in the domesic producion and led to the introducion of new dental care products. This study aims to describe the dental health developments in the classical Otoman medicine in consideraion of examples, and to provide an introducion to the dental care products put on the market since the mid-19 th century and those produced in the Early Republic Era. 

SOURCE: 

Nuran Yıldırım: “Osmanlı ve Erken Cumhuriyet dönemlerinde Ağız-Diş Bakımı ve Ürünleri”, Lokman Hekim Dergisi, II, 3 (2012), s.35-50.