18th century Maltese surgeon exhibition

An exhibition on the 18th century Maltese surgeon Michel'Angiolo Grima will open on September 2 at the Medical School, Mater Dei Hospital.

The exhibition will be opened by Godfrey LaFerla, Dean of the University of the Medical School.

It will feature surgical instruments, publications, ex-voto paintings and his baptismal and funerary Mass records, among other artefacts.

When aged 14, Michel'Angiolo Grima (1729-1798) joined the School of Anatomy and Surgery at the Sacra Infermeria, the hospital of the Order of the Knights of St John in Valletta.

In 1750 he was sent by the Order to Santa Maria Nuova Hospital in Florence. He obtained a Doctorate in Philosophy and Medicine from the University of Pisa and subsequently worked in Florence and Paris. He joined the French Army for two of the Seven Years War.

On his return to Malta in 1763, he was appointed chief surgeon and lecturer in anatomy and surgery. He published extensively in Florence, Messina, Paris, Venice, London and Malta.

An eight-page pamphlet on this personality produced by Charles Savona Ventura and George G. Buttigieg sells for €2.