Concepts of health and illness in early modern Malta

Abstract

Lay people, as it was popularised in the early modern period, should have easily understood medicine. Disease and illness reflected the material conditions of life so it was not difficult for the common folk to relate health and medicine to their environment and their daily diet. Medicine thus appealed so common sensations and perceptions, it constructed plausible stories to describe pathological events, and even in the case of plague, it gave hope of control over a hostile environment.

In this essay I will make use of a few case studies which may help explain these long lasting ideas on health and illness in early modern Malta. My research is largely derived from the archives of the Hospitaller Order of St John (1530-1798) and the Malta Roman Inquisition Tribunal (1561-1798). The documents pertaining to the Order's governments give information on the running of the Sacra Infermeria - the Order's hospital in Valletta, include petitions by physicians, barber-surgeons and others for pensions or extra allowances and information on the everyday perceptions of health. The Inquisition documents provide us with indirect information on the way diagnosis was carried out by medical men in the period under study.