Tawfiq Canaan

Looking towards the Mediterranean Sea, a view from within and of the campus of the American University of Beirut (formerly, the Syrian Protestant College) where Canaan studied medicine

Born in the village of Beit Jala in Palestine during the rule of the Ottoman Empire, Canaan studied as a child at the Schneller School, founded by German missionaries in nearby Jerusalem. His father Bechara, who was also schooled there, founded the first Lutheran church, YMCA, and co-ed school in Beit Jala and the first Arab pastor for the German Protestant Palestine Mission.[10][11] His mother, Katharina, was raised in a German orphanage in Beirut and met Bechara while working at a hospital in Jerusalem.[12]

In 1898-9, Canaan went to Beirut to study medicine at the Syrian Protestant College (today the American University of Beirut). Obliged to work while studying as his father died of pneumonia shortly after his arrival, he graduated with distinction in 1905.[13][12] His valedictory speech, "Modern Treatment", was likely his first published piece and broached the use of serums, animal organs, and X-rays.[14]

Canaan attributed his love of, interest in, and dedication to the people, culture and land of Palestine to his upbringing and the influence of his father who regularly took the family with him on his trips around the country.[15] In the Jerusalem Quarterly, Khaled Nashef suggests Canaan's knowledge of nature in Palestine as exhibited in writings such as "Plant-lore in Palestinian Superstition" (1928) among others were informed by these trips.[13]

The Old City of Jerusalem in the 1900s

Returning to Jerusalem from Beirut, Canaan began work in the German Deaconnesses Hospital, co-administering it with Dr. Adalbert Einsler (1848–1919) during a senior physician’s absence in 1906.[12][16] He was also sought as a manager at the German-Jewish Hospital (Shaare Zedek). His first published medical article as a practicing physician, “Cerebro-Spinal Meningitis in Jerusalem" (1911), was based on studies he conducted with the director there.[14]

Between 1912-1914, Canaan travelled to Germany several times to further his knowledge of microbiology and tropical diseases. On his first trip there, he met Margot Eilender, the daughter of a German importer, who had herself been born and raised in the Middle East, and they were quickly married, having their first child Yasma that same year. They built their family home in the al-Musrarah district of Jerusalem in 1913, where their three other children (Theo, Nada, and Leila) were born. In that home, Canaan also opened the only Arab clinic operating in Jerusalem at the time.[17][1]

One of the physicians Canaan collaborated with in Germany was Hans Müch, head of a mission to Palestine whose 1913 report on tuberculosis included three research papers authored by Canaan.[18] That same year, he was appointed director of the Malaria Branch of the International Health Bureau, a world center for medical research and microscopic examination founded by The German Society for Fighting Malaria, The Jewish Health Bureau, and The Jewish Physicians and Scientists for Improving Health in Palestine.[19]

(Partial list)

• Order of the Red Crescent (in World War I[31]
• Iron Cross of 1914[31]
• Holy Sepulchre Cross with a red ribbon, awarded by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch (1951)[31]
• Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1951)[31]

• Saint George Interfaith shrine
• Palestinian Christians

• The Tawfiq Canaan Collection of Palestinian Amulets – A virtual gallery
• The Great War in Palestine: Dr Tawfiq Canaan’s Photographic Album, Norbert Schwake, 2014, Jerusalem Quarterly, Institute for Palestine Studies