Volume 2

Reports of the commission appointed by the Admiralty, the War Office, and the civil government of Malta, for the Investigation of Mediterranean Fever / under the supervision of an Advisory Committee of the Royal Society.

Date:
1905-1907
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Reports of the commission appointed by the Admiralty, the War Office, and the civil government of Malta, for the Investigation of Mediterranean Fever / under the supervision of an Advisory Committee of the Royal Society. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    REPORT UPON THE GENERAL SANITARY CIRCUM- STANCES OF THE MALTESE ISLANDS, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE PREVALENCE OF MEDITERRANEAN FEVER THEREIN. Part I—General Sanitary Survey. Part II.—Mediterranean Fever. Part III.—Outbreak of Mediterranean Fever in the Essex Regiment. Part IV.—General Summary and Conclusion. By Dr. Ralph W. Johnstone, Medical Inspector Local Government Board. Brief Description of the Maltese Islands. These islands include Malta, Gozo, Comino, and Cominetto. The two latter are islets, and, save for the hospital for exotic disease on Comino, with its caretaker, are uninhabited. The island of Malta is about 17 miles long by 8 wide, having an area of 91 square miles. At the census of 1901 the actually resident popu- lation was returned as 176,127. This includes a garrison of about 11,000 men. There were besides about the same number of men on the fleet who were not included. Gozo is about 9 miles by 4^, with an area of 26 square miles. Its population was 20,002 in 1901. Both islands are covered by low hills, which, with their intervening valleys, leave little or no flat surface. In Gozo the hills are more abrupt, but in neither island is the highest point more than 760 feet above sea level. Every available inch of land is cultivated, but the fields are shut in by high stone walls, which gives the country its characteristic stony and sterile appearance. There are no rivers. Geologically the formation is an Upper Coralline limestone, under which are successive beds of greensand and marl, overlying a Globi- gerina limestone (often locally called calcareous sandstone), which again overlies a Lower Coralline limestone. Practically, all the inhabited part of Malta is denuded down to the Globigerina limestone, with occasional outcroppings of the Lower Coralline formation, and one or two patches of alluvium. The north-western and more elevated part of Malta is, however, covered by the Upper Coralline limestone, as is also the higher ground in Gozo. a 2