On Wednesday 24 April, the book launch of Health, Plague and Society in Early Modern Malta (Kite Group Publishers) by (Director, ) was held at Tal-Ħerba Chapel, Birkirkara.
Prof. Cassar explained that his interest in the cultural history of health and plague is purely accidental. Way back in the 1990s, while carrying out his research at several archives, in Malta and elsewhere, he came across many references to the wide spectrum of early modern healing methods adopted by a wide variety of healers from popular healers to members of the clergy, and from barber-surgeons to physicians as well as apothecaries as pharmacists were called.
An evaluation of past medical practices confirms that a wide variety of healing practices all of which deserve evaluation as they all contribute, in one way or another, to a proper understanding of how medical practices were perceived in past times. This book is an attempt in that direction.
Several authors shared their views on the book:
'Prof. Carmel Cassar’s Health, Plague and Society in Early Modern Malta deals with a grey area, where seemingly sensible measures about death and disease are murkily entwined not just with questions of faith, but also with superstition and witchcraft. This resulted, as expected, in a cacophony of voices that Cassar tries to meticulously parse and make sense of. Carmel’s style is never bogged down by convoluted arguments or big words. His writing is always enjoyable. He wears his learning lightly, belying the great insights and depths present in this book.' (University of Malta)
'Where Cassar’s book really stands out is in the depth of its profound social dimension. The facts on which that rests usually come episodically, in a lively, eminently reader friendly manner. He avoids ending the target of one of my pet hates – books written by professors for professors. Assertively scholarly in the fastidiousness of his trawls through the archives, and in his contextualising all the data, his focus never shifts from man, from human suffering and hope – the patient as he (not that infrequently, she) interacts with others, with authority, with prejudice, with destiny.'- Giovanni Bonello (Sunday Times of Malta, 24 March 2024).
'The culmination of a lifetime's scholarship into the history of Maltese society, Carmel Cassar takes us into a world dominated by "bad airs", overeating by a few and undernourishment for the many, smallpox, syphilis and, above all, plague. While not forgetting the wider European and Mediterranean context, the book is alive with real Maltese, healers and sufferers. The authorities did what they could, limited by their knowledge and their administrative capacities, as Cassar demonstrates in this richly documented study.'- David Gentilcore - (Ca' Foscari University of Venice).
'This book is a fascinating, informative, must-read for anyone interested in Early Modern Health Care and Plague in the Mediterranean. Carmel Cassar’s well-documented and carefully researched case-studies together with their colourful characters challenge traditional views on elite versus popular medicine. The author manages to create an easy to follow and delightful account of Malta’s daily life as relates to health and illness in a time of big socio-political transition. Excellent!' -Teresa Huguet-Termes (University of Barcelona).
'Prof. Cassar is an old hand at Anthropology and Social History, his style is highly accessible and readable, and his personality – which shines through the text – is pleasant and, at times, even a tad ironic.'- Mark Sammut-Sassi (The Independent on Sunday, 7 April 2024).
'Prof. Cassar’s book allows us to walk the streets of Early Modern Malta to enable us to understand and appreciate the living conditions of the population where the majority verged on semi-starvation living in squalid conditions – a true formula for propagating disease.' - (University of Malta).
