The passing away of President Emeritus Vincent Tabone at the venerable age of 99 years less a few days was a great loss both for Malta and Gozo, but more so for Gozo. I am not going to deal with Dr Tabone’s merits as a politician, or of his private or social acquaintances, as others can do that much better than I. I want to mention only his great and impeccable services as an ophthalmologist.

Dr Tabone was not only an eminent patriot... but also a great benefactor...- Anton F. Attard, Victoria

At the time when Dr Tabone was born, in 1913, a nasty eye disease, called trachoma, was rampant in Gozo, so much so that the government deemed it necessary to open an ophthalmic hospital for the cure of eye diseases. It was inaugurated at Ta’ L-Ibraġ, Victoria, on June 22, 1929. Most patients at this hospital were suffering from trachoma.

Trachoma is a contagious bacterial eye disease in which scar tissue forms inside the eyelid, eventually causing it to curve inward and the eyelashes to scrape the eye and cause infection.

Little progress could be done for the cure of this disease until Dr Tabone discovered the proper medicine which cured not only individual cases but in the end it was also the medium by which this shameful disease was eradicated from the island of Gozo once and for all.

When I was a boy at the infant school I remember there were still a few lingering cases, but in two or three years time the disease was not mentioned any more. Gozo was free from trachoma, thanks to Dr Tabone.

As a matter of fact Dr Tabone was called abroad to several Third World countries to give his services to cure eye diseases over there.

So Dr Tabone was not only an eminent patriot who loved his island home so much but also a great benefactor because he freed Gozo from the harmful and shameful disease of trachoma.

Let us not neglect the remembrance of such a great Gozitan personality by erecting a memorial in his honour in a prominent site.