A disproportionate number of Arab litterateurs in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire during the long 19th century obtained medical training. These litterateurs wrote, not only on health issues, but also on a variety of socio-cultural topics such as women, urban planning, history and even the theatre. This blend between medical training and writing raises questions regarding these litterateurs’ perception of their role in society and on the relationship between education, society and culture during this period. The long 19th century was a period of highly accelerated literary production in Arabic, known as the Arabic nahda. The majority of this production, albeit not exclusively, took place in the urban centers of the regions of Egypt and greater Syria. New opportunities to learn, the introduction of new disciplines, a growing number of printing presses and the start of mass production of Arabic texts produced a new literate class with modernizing aspirations. This period also saw a growth in the medical profession and of steps taken towards a standardization of medical knowledge: with the first modern faculties of medicine established in 1827 in Cairo and Istanbul and then in 1867 and 1883 in Beirut. While not all who studied in these faculties graduated or practiced medicine, many published a variety of texts that include articles, books, essays and translations. This paper explores these texts and their writers. I argue that individuals during this time felt that medical training not only had the potential to benefit them personally but also perceived themselves and the medical discipline as an important component of the nahda and its modernizing project. As such, they had both a responsibility and the qualifications to cure not only the individual body but social body of Arab society. They were also viewed as holding this capacity by their readers. These medically trained literatures perceived themselves to be part of a new educated middle-class with a civilizing mission toward the lower classes and their society as a whole.