Notes on Sir Archibald Garrod's stay in Malta 1915-1919

Abstract

The following notes owe their owe directly to the reprinting of Garrod's Irtborn Errors of Metabolism by Professor H. Harris. While perusing the bibliography of Sir Archibald Garrod's writings appended as a supplement to that reprint, I was struck by the item: "Islands, a lecture delivered in the Aula Magna, Malta University, 21 January 1919". During a visit to Malta in the spring of 1964, I took the opportunity of looking up this lecture in the Royal Malta Library and to my surprise there discovered a second lecture delivered by Sir Archibald in the same place on 3rd November 1917, entitled The University of Utopia and also that Garrod was honorary M.D. of that University. This set up a train of events, of researches in the archives of that University and in the daily newspapers published in Malta during the First World War, of interviews with people who had known Garrod during that period, of correspondence with Dr. George Graham, ER.C.P. and with Mr. J. L. Thornton, Librarian at St. Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College. The results give a reasonably clear glimpse of a little known, but important part of Garrod's life. For a detailed information on the life and works of Sir Archibald Garrod the reader is referred to the Wix Prize Essay 1949 by C. J. R. Hart.