Sir Archibald Garrod and Malta: a historical occasion recalled

Abstract

This article features a brief biography of Sir Archibald Garrod (1857-1936), a well known English physician, deeply interested in the chemical and metabolic processes which take place in the healthy and in the diseased human body. He is certainly the honorary graduate of the University of Malta whose ideas and work have had the most far-reaching influence and application in medical science. At the outbreak of First World War, he served as a Consulting Physician to the army and was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George for his devoted services. Garrod's early publications were mainly clinical in character and they included several case reports and a small book on the use of the laryngoscope. He is best known, however, for his absorbing studies on alkaptonuria. In 1916 the University of Malta conferred the honorary degree of M.D. on Garrod, "in recognition of the high qualifications possessed and of the special services rendered by the same eminent professors in the cause of humanity during the war".