Sir Themistocles Zammit and the controversy on the goat's role in the transmission of brucellosis (Mediterranean fever) 1909-1916

Abstract

Sir Themistocles Zammit is, in my view, Malta's most distinguished man. He turns up in the record of international scientific research and culture, as no other Maltese has ever done, in connection with his fundamental discoveries in the fields of medicine and archaeology. He was born in Valletta in 1864. After graduating M.D. in 1889 at our University, he was appointed Government Analyst in the Public Health Department. He was made a member of the Commission for the investigation of Mediterranean Fever in Malta set up in 1904 by the Royal Society of London and the British War Office and Admiralty. Before joining the Commission, he had already devised a method for the isolation of the Micrococcus melitensis (now Brucella melitensis) from the blood of affected patients and had also shown that the liquid acid media in which the microbe was cultivated turned alkaline after some time (1903).