How did Sir David Bruce forget Zammit and his goats?

Abstract

I have no competing interests – only an interest in Sir Themistocles Zammit, scientist, doctor, professor of Chemistry, vice chancellor of Malta University, archaeologist, founder of the Malta Museum of Archaeology, member of the Governors’ Council, writer of childrens’ stories in Maltese. Zammit’s experiments showed that Brucellosis was transmitted by goats’ milk yet there is a RAMC tradition that this was the work of Sir David Bruce. Bruce himself ascribed it to the work of the Mediterranean Fever Commision without mentioning Zammit. Bruce’s obituary in The Times continued this tradition and is the source of other biographies. Other writers from outside the RAMC rightly credit Zammit. Did Bruce forget Zammit or did he magnify the work of the RAMC and his own work?