Themistocles Zammit

Horrocks quickly confirmed Zammit’s results: ‘I believe Zammit’s experiment was all right, but the conditions required for success, i. e. , many micrococci in the blood, and the bites of several mosquitoes, are rarely met with’ 19 . Horrocks mentioned Zammit’s experiments with feeding by two Stegomyia and his successful transfer from a monkey to a patient via the mosquito. 17 However, he then went on ‘The experiments made with Stegomyia fasciata do not support the results obtained by Dr. Zammit. ’This last comment must surely be the one about which Shaw wrote to Bruce. 21 Horrocks and Kennedy later found four infected mosquitoes out of 450 collected in ‘presumably infected places’. 22 With Caruana Scicluna he wrote about several cases of malaria which occurred in 1904 when soldiers from malarious areas were sent to Malta. 44 In 1930 he returned to this outbreak and mentioned Crete as the previous station. 45 Curiously, he described the 1904 outbreak as the last in Malta, not mentioning the 20 cases around Salina Bay when Maltese soldiers returned from Macedonia in 1919. 46 Zammit reviewed the incidence of Malta Fever among civilians in the towns of Malta and Gozo 1891-1901. 13 His statistics showed that several of the suggested sources of infection were very unlikely, but he concluded that it might be insect borne. Zammit and the British armed services Captain Hughes thanked Zammit for his help with his book on Malta Fever, 1897. Eyre wrote that ‘[Hughes] had the advantage of Professor Zammit’s assistance ‘ 50 . Zammit worked with other British Army officers on the MFC and later wrote a memo about Malta Fever with Colonel MacNeece and others 7 Col. A. M. Davies wrote ‘Zammit has been very good with some laboratory work for me’. 51 In 1914, Dr. Zammit supplied Major Kennedy in London with a recently isolated strain of M. melitensis and milk from infected goats. 52 Surgeon E. H. Ross RN (brother of Major Ronald Ross), wrote to Zammit asking his advice. Ross and his colleague Surgeon G. Murray Levick wrote that: ‘We wish to take this opportunity of thanking Dr. Them Zammit, Government Bacteriologist of Malta, for his help and suggestions. He has done much of the bacteriological work which we have purposely avoided. ’ [see ref 54] At the first general meeting of the United Services Medical Society, Malta Branch, 1908 Zammit ‘described the catchment area for the municipal water supply... ’ and ‘spoke of the difficulty of obtaining reliable strains of paratyphoid’. 55 Malta University As lecturer and then professor of chemistry he wrote two booklets in Maltese for practical classes. He applied for the Chemistry Chair at the University of West Australia, Perth on A group of friends, surgeons and servicemen, to whom Zammit delivered a talk to discuss undulant fever. It includes Capt. Harvey, Surg. Knapp, Surg. Duddling and Surg. Moore. Courtesy of the Zammit Family 42 Malta Medical Journal Volume 22 Issue 01 March 2010 30 August 1912, but withdrew on finding that he would lose his pension rights under the Maltese Government regulations. 7 Travels and war Zammit travelled to England on the Hospital Ship “Maine” in April 1907 and attended the seventh meeting of the Sub- Committee on Mediterranean Fever, of the Tropical Diseases Committee of the Royal Society. He met many doctors and scientists, visited many laboratories, hospitals and museums and made notes of several procedures eg opsonic index. He took back 24 bacterial cultures to Malta. 57 While serving in Malta during World War I, Sir Archibald Garrod of Inborn errors of metabolism fame, ‘developed a friendship with a Maltese physician Professor (later Sir) Themistocles Zammit’ 58 who showed him the archaeological sites of Malta. The University of Malta conferred the degree of MD, honoris causa on Garrod in 1916 and on ‘27 May 1920 Garrod’s old friend from his Malta days, Sir Themistocles Zammit, received the degree of Doctor of Letters honoris causa from Oxford where Garrod