The first studies in family guidance in early childhood: the books of Dr. Hafız Cemal

The main purpose of this study is to investigate Dr. Hafız Cemal Lokman Hekim’s three books including “Children Health”, “How to Feed Small Children” and “Present for Mothers” with respect to their significance in family guidance and in family education. In the study, document analysis was used as one of the qualitative research methods. In the analysis process, four main categories were created including nutrition, health, care and counselling. As clearly seen in the analysis, the main purpose of Dr. Hafız Cemal’s books is to raise a healthy generation and protect the population. The opinions and suggestions of Dr. Hafız Cemal on nutrition, health and care are still valid after 120 years. He realized that the conditions of those days would have harmful outcomes for health. Therefore, he gave suggestions especially about oral and tooth health, hygiene and the prevention from diseases which were totally innovative in those days. Furthermore Dr. Hafız Cemal both as a religious man and as a medical doctor gave information to people by combining the necessities of religion and science together and he tried to enlighten people and he also talked about the significance of literacy although it was a little bit.