Salomea Regina Pilsztynowa

Salomea Regina Rusiecka was born in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Nowogród Voivodship) in 1718. Her parents married her to a physician Jakub Halpir, a Lutheran, when she was 14. She went with him to Istanbul, where he had his medical practice, and assisted him, learning from him and also from an Italian doctor from Malta. Her husband left her after 3 years of marriage (he himself died soon afterwards) but she conducted the medical practice herself. She run her life as an itinerant physician, travelling through the Ottoman Empire, the Commonwealth, Russia, Austria and Prussia earning the means for the upkeep of her children. With that aim in mind, she also undertook two journeys for earning on the captives whom she had redeemed. All in all, she spent c.12 years in Turkey (1732-39, 1741-43, 1757-60) and learnt the Turkish quite well. She got to know the country and its inhabitants well due to her medical profession and numerous travels. She described them in her memoirs Proceder podróży i życia mego awantur, as she intended to give account of her life.