Introduction The particular place of medicine in the debate on modernity and modernization in the Middle-East in the 19th and the 20th centuries, Anne Marie Moulin and Yeşim Işıl Ulman 1. Between East and West, shared and diverging visions and methods Kostas Gavroglu, Some methodological issues concerning the sciences at the European periphery Emre Dölen, Réflexions sur la perception ottomane de la science moderne Serif Mardin, Some preliminary thoughts about the Tanzimat and the idea of Nature Christoph K. Neumann, Making the Universal one's own. The diffusion of modern science through Ottoman journals addressing a general readership 2. Scenes and actors of modernization M'hamed Oualdi, Du hakim renégat au praticien européen : mutations d'identité des médecins de cour et modernisation du service rendu aux beys de Tunis, du milieu du XVIIe siècle au milieu du XIXe siècle Marwa Elshakry, Darwinian conversions: science and translation in late Ottoman Egypt and Greater Syria Hormoz Ebrahimnejad, Glimpses of relationship between Hospital, State and Medicine in nineteenth-century Iran Yeşim Işıl Ulman, Medical Modernization in 19th Century Ottoman Empire with special reference to the introduction of Roentgen Rays in Turkey Nuran Yıldırım, Les mesures de quarantaine prises pendant les épidémies de choléra et leurs répercussions sur la société ottomane (1831-1918) 3. Elusive modernity Sylvia Chiffoleau, Les quarantaines au Moyen-Orient : vecteurs ambigus de la modernité médicale (XIXe-XXe siècles) Anne Marie Moulin, Changeante modernité. L’état égyptien et la modernisation de la santé publique (19e-20e siècle) Nadav Davidovitch and Zalman Greenberg, Smallpox and variolation in a village in Palestine in december 1921. A case study of public health, culture and colonial medicine Edhem Eldem, Sorrow and Illness: "Modern" expression of Death in Ottoman Muslim epitaphs of the 19th century Claire Beaudevin, Une médecine moderne "coupée du passé" : l'exemple de l'échographie obstétricale au sultanat d'Oman