The four sanitary ordinances 1900-1908 : a history 1900-2000

Abstract

The Four Sanitary Ordinances enacted between 1900 and 1908 were a 'quasicodification' of Maltese Medical legislation. A prime mover of such legislative enactments was the military authorities' urgent experience to provide a sanitary system that would cater for the needs of their bases stationed in Malta. The Armed Forces of the Crown in Malta influenced strongly the State authorities of the island towards reforming the medical system by virtue of such Sanitary Ordinances, which were modelled on English statutes. This thesis aims at presenting a detailed historico-legal narrative on the transformation of medical legislation in Malta from 1900 to 2000. By way of a necessary introduction, this thesis gives a compressed picture of the legislative development of the system under the British, since their advent in 1813. The first chapter contains the aim of this thesis, the sources analyzed and the method used. The second chapter presents the various sporadic, albeit important enactments regulating medical legislation in Malta during the nineteenth century. The legislative process leading to the promulgation of the Four Sanitary Ordinances between 1900 and 1908 is the meat of Chapter 3. The Fourth Chapter provides a comprehensive collection of the amendments to the Sanitary Ordinances from 1910 to 1945. Chapter 5 is an overview of the post-World War II legislative developments to the Sanitary Ordinances.