Slitting of letters for disinfection in the eighteenth century in Malta

Abstract

The purpose of disinfecting correspondence was to prevent the importation of pestilence into the Maltese Islands, as in the past it was believed that the "contagion" of plague could attach itself to paper. Arrangements for carrying out the disinfection of letters were in existence in Malta by 1678 - that is, two years after the worst visitation of plague in the history of the Maltese Islands. lt has been stated that the means employed for this purpose at that time are unknown, and that no precise documents have been found from which one can deduce the nature of the mail-disinfection methods of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Malta. It has been suggested that by 1787, over a century later, the process used in Malta was the same as that then prevailing at Marseilles - that is, incising the letter (entailles) and soaking it in vinegar. The earliest instance, however, which has been quoted of the incising of correspondence for purification in Malta belongs to 1809.