Two centuries of medical prescribing in Malta 1683 - 1882

Abstract

Five old prescription registers cover a wide span of years from the late 17th through the 18th to the second half of the 19th centuries. These registers provide an extensive panorama of pharmaceutical preparations which medical men prescribed and pharmacists dispensed over an almost uninterrupted period of two hundred years from 1683 to 1882. The earliest register begins on the 9th February 1683 and ends on the 2nd January 1713. A selection of names of preparations that could be identified is reproduced in their original abbreviated wording with the year in which they were issued. The second register starts from 1st June 1713 and ends on 28th September 1735. In contrast to the first register, it records the names of the pharmacists who were paid for the drugs. Items include oils, ointments, syrups, conserves, powders and emplastra. They were compounded, in most instances, of vegetable parts but animal ingredients such as scorpions, crayfish, hart's horn and human skull also figure among the preparations. The third eighteenth century register extends from 31st October 1766 to the 29th March 1768. It is of the same format as the previous registers. The two 19th century registers were in use at the pharmacy of Messrs Collis and Williams of Valletta. An interesting description of the conditions which these medical men tried to correct is provided, together with their favourite remedies.