KasrAlainy School Of Medicine I
KasrAlainy was the continuation of Abzabal Militery Hospital Which was build By Mohamed Ali Bashaa Ruler of Egypt with the aid of French Doctor Cot Beck in 1826
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It was out a desire for expansion, that the School of Medicine was moved from Abou Zaabal to Kasr El-Aini at 1837. This new site was preferred not only because it could accommodate 1,500 beds and 300 students, but also because it was situated in the heart of Cairo, compared to Abou Zaabal, which lies oil the outskirts of the Egyptian capital. At present, Kasr El-Aini is so well known that its name is taken for granted. Nobody even attempts to think of how it acquired this name. In fact, it takes its name from the influential man who built it in the J5th century as a palace to live in, El-Mokerr El-Shehabi Ahmed Ibn El-Aini. It then became a hotel for kings and princes, and remained so until the French Occupation of Egypt transformed it into a military hospital.
El-Aini is a man who had vast power in Egypt during the time of the Sultan Khochqadain. He acquired several titles during his lifetime: and his impatience and authority is best testified by the fact that there are two biographies of him. It is the is historical grandeur which gives Kasr El-Aini its special chamcter as a solid building with enormous corridors, thick walls, and powerful foundations that have resisted and challenged the action of time.
The state found out that it needed a wider and a more spacious area, and so, the hospital and the school were transferred from Abou Zaabal to Kasr El-Aini .
The hospital of Abou Zaabal was first considered to be the site per election for the school of medicine owing to the facilities, which it afforded for medical education. Apart from being the only hospital at that time, the Abou Zaabal site was extremely difficult to forsake as a place in Cairo, which could hold from one thousand to one thousand and five hundred patients and at the same time, have sufficient annexes for lodging three hundred students and numerous rooms suitable for lecturing.
The Viceroy Mohamed Aly finally granted him the handsome college of Kasr El-Aini. It was located between Old Cairo and the populated district off Boulac, facing the splendid island of Rodah, covered with gardens. It is to these vast buildings, that Dr. Clot Bey transferred the School and hospital of Abou Zaabal in the winter of 1837.
The new hospital was set up to accommodate one thousand five hundred patients as well as three hundred students. A great number of elemis that had entered the school later bore the fruit of their learning to various countries of the East. In Kasr El-Aini, they found a rich library, a museum for natural history, and laboratories for physics and chemistry. The hospital, equipped with its dormitories and refectories, was like the best hospitals of Europe. «It would have been hard to find a more comprehensive institution with a better layout and location».
Some of the numerous advantages of transferring the School from Abou Zaabal to Cairo were
- The hospital was near the garrison.
- It did not take the patients long to reach the hospital especially as they were able to follow a short cut either by and/or across the Nile.
- The patients were all in one hospital, instead of being sent to Abou Zaabal, or to the Military Hospital at Azbakia.
- It was easier for students to achieve clinical education.
- Students, studying religious subjects, who came to Egypt from all over the eastern countries to study Islamic law at El-Azhar Mosque were able to come in groups to the School of Medicine to attend lectures and lessons. Thus they could, later on, convey what they had learnt in Egypt to their native countries. Thus science would spread not only in Egypt, but also in other Islamic countries that were deprived of such education. Undoubtedly, it would be advantageous, fruitful, and useful to humanity and civilization.
Ibrahim Pasha allocated a part of the land off Geziret el-Rodah to establish a new garden for plantation. Geziret el-Rodah was famous for its gardens that competed with European gardens in beauty and tidiness.
The history of Kasr El-Aini dates as far back as the middle of the ninth century after El-Hejirah (the middle of the fifteenth century A.D.). It is intimately connected with grave happenings, and the names of famous people in the history of Egypt, during the time of the Mamelukes and the French Occupation. In this connection, Ibn Eyas says : «In 871 H. (1466 - 1467 A.D.), El-Mokerr El-Shehabi Ahmed Ibn El-Aini gained more in power and became omnipotent in Egypt. It is he who built the great palace, overlooking the river, in Mancheyet El-Mohrani, into which El-Sultan Khoshqadam moved when its construction was complete»
Carsten Niebar, who lived in Cairo in 1761 - 1762, drew a map of Cairo, and allotted in it a wide space to Kasr El-Aini extending as far as Foom El-Khalig, and described a huge building over which stood a magnificent dome. He also pointed out that the dervishes lived in the Bukhtashi's Refuge, which was constructed, in 1787, in the neighborhood of Kasr El-Aini.
The French transformed Kasr El-Aini into a military hospital; and when General Kleber was assassinated, his coffin was placed on a hillock, near Kasr EI-Aini, pending the transfer of his corpse, with the French Army, to France.
Kasr El-Aini is a quadrilateral building surrounded by beautiful parks and composed of two stories above a ground floor. Each of its wings consists of a double row of rooms on either side. each wing is divided into four compartments, each of which holds fifty beds. In the center of the building lies a very large court surrounded by trees. In the vicinity of the southern wing, stand four big separate blocks. The first off these blocks comprises the amphitheatres, the chemical and physical laboratories and the natural history hall. The second is for dormitories and dining halls. The third is for the common dispensary. The fourth is for the kitchen, baths, lavatories and laundries.
