Grima : the eighteenth century surgeon

Abstract

The Eighteenth Century is regarded as the century of reason. Indeed, it was the century which saw the emancipation of the surgeon, when surgeons attained a status equal to that of physicians, when surgery was at last able to shake off the shakles that bound it to bonesetters and barbers, when new attitudes and more rational thinking was fostered in the European Medical schools. The appearance of the new movement known as the Enlightenment may be attributed to several political and social processes, to the newly-established intellectual freedom, to the systematists who endeavoured to bring experimental studies closer to everyday life. Michel'Angiolo Grima was born in or around 1730. His father was an unsuccessful merchant, who contributed little (financially or otherwise) to his son's education. Grima repeatedly asserts he was born in Valletta, although so far no evidence seems forthcoming to corroborate this fact.