Plague epidemics in Malta from 1592-1814

Abstract

In tracing the process of the different plagues which ravaged Malta, from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century, we observe that, throughout the whole one universal system of precaution has been resorted to, for the purpose of checking the course of the disorder. That system was the separation and interdiction of intercourse between the diseased and the healthy. Thus from the earliest periods in which there has been any record in Malta of the treatment of the disease, even to the present time the plague has been considered in Malta as contagious. In whatever light I view plague, I consider it as the most afflicting of all human calamities striking at the very root of our best affections, and severing the dearest and most sacred of our social ties, paralyzing every public measure impeding every branch of commerce and at once wounding, in the most deadly manner our best and dearest interests. I shudder at the thought that in 1813, out of a population of over 100,000 souls in Malta, 4,572 died of the plague. It is no surprise to me that Lord Byron in his second stay in Malta in 1811, poured forth a bitter "Adieu to Malta", in which he vented his chagrin for everything Maltese, not excluding the lazaretto.