Physiological and pathological research at the general military hospital of Valletta, Malta, in the early nineteenth century

Abstract

The theoretical and practical progress achieved by the biological sciences in our time contrasts very markedly with the tentative experimental studies in these fields in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Those distant years are of special interest to the historian of medicine as they formed the matrix in which the seeds of our present knowledge were sown and cultured. Malta may take some pride in the fact that it has had a share - albeit a small one· in the series of steps leading towards the elucidation of the chemical, physiological and pathological perplexities of those formative years. This was possible thanks to the investigations and observations of Dr. John Davy carried out at the British General Military Hospital of Valletta- formerly the Holy Infirmary of the Order of St. John - between 1828 and 1835.