Medical pluralism and its impact on illness in 16th and 17th century Malta

Abstract

In early modern Malta, as in the rest of Europe, there existed two major systems by which one could explain health and sickness, life and death or, general success and failure in everyday life. The first was religious in nature and it was based on the general belief that God's omnipresence in the world served as an active force in which the good were rewarded and the impious were punished. God showed his hand on the malevolence of the world in the devastation caused by warring activities or, the infliction of famine and plague. It was believed that the only way these scourges could be controlled was by resorting to supernatural power. Belief in supernatural healing may have been largely circular reasoning but since it was largely ecclesiastical in nature it was believed to be supernatural. It had a vast spiritual and therapeutic effect on the majority of the people.