Diseases may be known by the localities where they were first described or were common. Thus undulant fever, a particularly debilitating illness that often led to rheumatism, became known as Malta fever—to which many Maltese objected. There were many other names for it: Rock or Gibraltar fever, as well as Cyprus, Neapolitan, Italian, and Crimean fever. But Malta fever was the favoured name. Mediterranean fever was recommended by an international congress but was really unsuitable as the fever was found in many other localities.
Sir David Bruce discovered the causative organism in the spleen of a soldier who had died in Malta and in 1886 named it Micrococcus melitensis—melita being the old name for Malta. The Colonial Office in 1903 wrote to the Royal Society “with regard to Malta Fever.” Bruce replied that “when a name... has got fixed in medical literature it is difficult to change it. The word Mediterranean, however, is too long and people cling to the older and shorter word Malta.” When he succeeded the next year in his ambition to investigate the transmission of the bacteria, he used the name Mediterranean Fever Commission. Nevertheless, he used Malta fever in the titles and text of papers published in 1906 and 1907, as well as the Research Defence Society booklet in 1908 The Extinction of Malta Fever (A lesson in the use of animal experimentation).
Maltese doctors continued to be displeased with the continued use of Malta fever. In 1927 the members of the Camera Medica of Malta and the Malta Branch of the British Medical Association pleaded for the discontinuance of the geographical designations of undulant fever in a three page pamphlet in English, Italian, French, Spanish, and German versions.
Four years later, Major General Sir David Bruce FRS died and the Malta Chronicle and Imperial Services Gazette reprinted part of the obituary from the Times, which incorrectly attributed to Bruce the discovery of the transmission of Malta fever by the milk of goats.
Dr J E Debono promptly replied, giving the credit for this important discovery to Sir Themistocles Zammit, the great Maltese doctor, chemist, archaeologist, author, and politician—and once again pleaded for the term undulant fever. Debono suggested that “the last vestige of association with Malta would disappear. Whether such a change is desirable I do not know, but it would satisfy many who are perhaps unduly sensitive.”
Sir David Bruce would be pleased that the disease is now known as brucellosis and that in our more sensitive age no one uses the objectionable geographical term.
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