OVER THELAST decade or two, the field of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies has witnessed the convergence of new perspectives on the history of epidemic diseases. A proliferation of research projects since the early 2000s have yielded a number of publications that enables us to explore connections between Middle Eastern studies and the histories of medicine and health. This volume serves as a testament that the field has reached a certain level of maturity.

The purpose of this volume is to showcase recently produced work in this field with a view to opening it up to broader inquiry. Much like the emergent field of studies to which it contributes, this volume itself represents burgeoning work. The idea behind putting together this volume grew out of conversation in a roundtable discussion at the 2010 meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA). In its embryonic form, this project had a more ambitious scope than its current form, both spatially and temporally. It aimed to bring together the works extending across the Islamic Mediterranean, from the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. However, along the way, the volume developed around a more defined focus—the Ottoman Empire. This definition also characterized the temporal range, bearing testimony to the challenge of disease and the responses of a pre-modern society to it. The articles in the volume largely cover the early modern period, touching upon, on one hand, the late medieval era, and on the other, the era of modernization.

Fortunately, the expertise of this volume's contributors made it possible to retain the focus on early modern Ottoman society while exploring its connections to the broader Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and European contexts. Yet this has been also a humbling reminder that any sweeping generalization would have to face the immensity of its object of study: the Ottoman Empire and the historical reality it represents spanning temporally and spatially beyond any single scholar's area of expertise. Turning this very challenge into a source of strength, each of these essays works with different toolkits, as much in their selection of sources as in their use of interdisciplinary methodologies.