Naguib Pasha Mahfouz
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{{dablink|This article is about the Egyptian doctor. For the Egyptian novelist, see [[Naguib Mahfouz]].}}
<!-- Unsourced image removed: [[Image:Nahas.jpg|thumb|200px|With King Paul of Greece, and Prime Minister Mostafa Pasha El Nahas.]] -->
'''Dr. Professor Naguib Mikhail Mahfouz''' ([[5 January]] [[1882]] – [[25 July]] [[1974]]) ([[Arabic language|Arabic]]:''' نجيب باشا محفوظ ''') is known as the father of [[obstetrics]] and [[gynaecology]] in Egypt and was a pioneer in [[obstetric fistula]].
==Early life==
Mahfouz was born to a [[Coptic Christian]] family on the [[January 5]], [[1882]] in the city of [[Mansoura]] in the delta of [[Egypt]]. He entered Kasr El Aini Medical School in 1898, where teaching was predominantly undertaken by eminent European professors. At this time, Kasr El Aini hospital had no department of obstetrics and gynaecology, and the only case of labour that he attended "ended fatally for both mother and child". In June 1902, when Mahfouz was about to take his final year exams, there was an outbreak of [[cholera]] in Egypt and medical students were recruited to help combat the epidemic. The medical school was closed and exams postponed. Mahfouz was initially assigned to the [[Cairo]] railway station, to examine suspected cholera patients coming from [[Upper Egypt]]. Mahfouz paid a visit to the Health Department Director General and demanded to be sent to Mousha, a village in Upper Egypt near [[Assiut]] which was particularly hard-hit by the deadly disease and where a doctor had just succumbed to the same disease he had been sent to fight. In Mousha, young Mahfouz traced the cholera deaths to an infected well in a farmer's house. Within a week of the discovery of the well, the Mousha cholera epidemic had come to an end and so a nineteen-year-old medical student succeeded where a body of the ablest and most experienced British Public Health Department experts had failed. Mahfouz subsequently had similar success in fighting cholera in Deirout in Upper Egypt, as well as in and [[Alexandria]].
== The first department of obstetrics and gynaecology in Egypt==
Mahfouz qualified as a doctor in December [[1902]], coming top of his year. In [[1904]] and after a two-year spell at [[Suez]] hospital, he was appointed as an [[anaesthetist]] at Kasr El Aini hospital. As there was no such thing as a department of obstetrics or gynaecology at Kasr El Aini hospital, Mahfouz started a weekly gynaecological outpatient clinic. This turned out to be such a success that two whole wards were soon dedicated to obstetrical and gynaecological patients, and so the first department of obstetrics and gynaecology in Egypt came into existence. Mahfouz acquired much experience in dealing with difficult labour, partly from an agreement that he had struck with the medical officers who delivered women in their homes: whenever they faced a difficult labour, the medical officers would call Mahfouz into attendance. For his part, he would attend to the patient's house and help them deal with the most complicated cases without charging a fee. During the fifteen years to come, Mahfouz attended about two thousand women with difficult labour in their own homes. During this time, he recalls sleeping no more than two nights a week in the comfort of his own home.
One of the children that Naguib Mahfouz delivered after a difficult labour, was named after him in 1911. This child later became the laureate of the [[Nobel prize in literature]], the famous novelist [[Naguib Mahfouz]].
==Career progression==
Naguib Mahfouz was appointed as Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Kasr El Aini Medical School in January [[1929]], a post he occupied until he reached the age of retirement in January [[1942]]. His term of service at Kasr El Aini was extended by five years at the unanimous request of his colleagues at the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Mahfouz was also obstetrician and gynaecologist to the Egyptian Royal Family. His pioneering work on the surgical repair of urinary and faecal fistulae brought him and Kasr El Aini hospital international acclaim. The leading lights in his speciality came all the way to Egypt to watch him repair fistulae at Kasr El Aini and the [[Coptic Hospital]]s, and he was invited to lecture and show films of his operations at the Universities of [[University of London|London]], [[University of Oxford|Oxford]], [[University of Edinburgh|Edinburgh]], [[University of Geneva|Geneva]], and [[University of Lausanne|Lausanne]] to name a few.
==Mother and child welfare services==
The absence of a maternity unit at Kasr El Aini hospital was great handicap to Naguib Mahfouz's work . Thanks to his efforts and unrelenting campaigning, the first maternity centre in Egypt came into existence at Kasr El Aini. Mahfouz reorganised the School of [[nursing]] and [[midwifery]] and taught general nursing and midwifery to its pupils for over thirty years. No less than one thousand midwives graduated under him. His two books on nursing and midwifery were used by the students for many years. In [[1919]], he started a pioneering scheme whereby midwives trained to the highest standards were allowed to deliver women in their own homes, a year before a similar program was started in England. In [[1919]], Mahfouz introduced the first [[Obstetrics#Antenatal|antenatal]] clinics in Egypt, at the Kasr El Aini maternity hospital and in centres that he had opened in Cairo's deprived areas. Following this, he established a [[child welfare]] section at Kasr El Aini hospital, the first of its kind in Egypt. Many mother and child welfare centres were then built throughout the country.
==Foundation of the Mahfouz Museum of Obstetrics and Gynaecology==
By [[1930]], Naguib Mahfouz had managed to collect three thousand of the rarest specimens in obstetrics and gynaecology obtained from his [[Surgery|operations]]. That same year, he offered the [[museum]] which housed them and which was named after him, as a gift to the Kasr El Aini Medical School. The Naguib Mahfouz Museum of Obstetrics and Gynaecology still exists to date at Kasr El Aini Medical School. In [[1945]], the museum was described by the then President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of England, Sir Eardley Holland, as "a remarkable collection" and " a wonderful monument to the name of its founder". Mahfouz provided specimens to the museums of each of the universities of Ein Shams, Alexandria, Assiut and [[Khartoum]].
==Publications==
Naguib Mahfouz was a prolific [[author]] on a wide variety of subjects ranging from urinary and faecal fistulae, spinal analgesia, fibroids, [[ectopic pregnancy]], gynaecological malignancies, pelvic infections and [[caesarean section]]s. One of his greatest achievements was the Atlas of Mahfouz’s Obstetric and Gynaecological Museum, which he published in three volumes in [[1949]]. The atlas contained pictures and slides of all the specimens found at the Mahfouz Museum of obstetrics and gynaecology. The atlas was described by Sir Eardley Holland as "no doubt the best book that has appeared in obstetrics and gynaecology". Other books include the celebrated History of Medical Education in Egypt which he wrote in [[1935]]. He also wrote Principles of Gynaecology and the Art of Obstetrics, both in [[Arabic language|Arabic]].
==Honours ==
In [[1919]], Naguib Mahfouz was granted the [[Order of the Nile]]. In [[1935]], he was elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of England, an honour only bestowed on five eminent [[Physician|doctors]] at any one time. In [[1937]], he became a Fellow of each of the Royal College of Physicians of England and of the [[New York Academy of Medicine|Academy of Medicine]] of [[New York]]. During the same year, he was granted the title of ''[[pasha]]'', the highest honour bestowed on a [[civilian]] in Egypt. In [[1943]], the [[Royal College of Surgeons of England]] elected [[Sir Winston Churchill]], Mrs [[Chiang Kai-Shek]] and Professor Naguib Mahfouz as Honorary Fellows of the College, the highest honour the Royal College can bestow. As Mahfouz could not make it to [[London]] because of lack of transport during [[World War II]], the Royal College of Surgeons Council unusually enough conferred the degree on Naguib Mahfouz in Cairo. On [[July 1]] [[1947]], the Royal Society of Medicine of England bestowed its Honorary Fellowship upon Professor Naguib Mahfouz. During the same year, Mahfouz was also granted the Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Society of Gynaecology and Obstetrics of [[Edinburgh]]. Naguib Mahfouz was granted the Medal of Education as well as the [[Farouk of Egypt|King Farouk's]] Prize for Medical Sciences in [[1951]]. In [[1956]], The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists invited Mahfouz to deliver the Fletcher Shaw Memorial Lecture, an honour only conferred on Fellows of the College "whose research would have contributed to noticeable progress in obstetrics and gynaecology". So many applications to attend came in, that the venue of the lecture had to be moved from the College's lecture hall to the [[Royal Society of Medicine]] in London. In [[1960]], [[President of Egypt|President]] [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]] granted Mahfouz the First Class Order of Merit and the State Prize of Distinction for Science. President [[Anwar Sadat]] subsequently granted him the highest accolade post-humously.
== Private life ==
Naguib Mahfouz was married to Fayka Azmi in [[1911]]. They had a son and four daughters. He died at the age of 92 on 25th July [[1974]].
==References==
*''"Naguib Mahfouz. The life of an Egyptian doctor."'' Edinburgh and London: E & S Livingstone Ltd, 1966.
*Samir Mahfouz Simaika and Youssef Samir Simaika. ''"Naguib Mahfouz: the man who dedicated his life to the betterment of women’s health"'', Watani International, 25 July 2004.
*[The Coptic Medical Society][http://www.copticmedical.com/egyptiandoctor.html]
[[Category:Egyptian academics|Mahfouz]]
[[Category:Egyptian physicians|Mahfouz]]
[[Category:1882 births|Mahfouz]]
[[Category:1974 deaths|Mahfouz]]
[[Category:Coptic Christians]]
[[ar:نجيب باشا محفوظ]]