Anastasios Malkotsis (1869-1957) was a doctor from Panormos (Bandırma), Propontis. Besides practicing medicine, he collaborated with foreign insurance companies based in Constantinople at the beginning of the 20th century and was also the co-owner, along with his brother, of a pioneering company which operated diesel-powered flour mills and employed a diverse staff of Christians, Muslims and Armenians. He got married to Ekaterini Malkotsis, née Chatziioannou-Psomogianni, with whom they had three children, Evangelia, Eleni and Ioannis.
The family arrived in Greece in 1922. In Thessaloniki, Anastasios continued practicing medicine in the area of Agios Fanourios, in Toumpa. From Panormos, he had brought with him his leather medical bag with his medical instruments and tools (scissors, forceps, vials, syringes, needles, droppers) and the bronze plaque of his medical practice, inscribed with his name and profession in Greek and Armenian.
The objects were donated to the Folklife and Ethnological Museum of Macedonia and Thrace by his son, Ioannis, who was an agriculturalist. Ioannis included a handwritten note which reads: ‘Anastastios Malkotsis, doctor, Panormos, Asia Minor. This medical bag was a necessary accessory for doctors on their house calls. It contained all the basic supplies used at the time (until 1922) for medical emergencies: ether, cardiac and other tonics, cotton balls, gauze, bandages, iodine, etc. There was a separate case of equipment for labour and delivery which the doctor used in house visits to villages, but it has been lost.’
We wish to express our warmest thanks to the Folklife and Ethnological Museum of Macedonia and Thrace and to the folklorist-museologist Rena Botsiou for their contribution to our research.
Images: Nikos Tsiokas