Meet The Maltese All-Rounder Who Gave Us Non-Lethal Milk And Most Of Our Major Archaeological Discoveries

All-rounders are always widely-celebrated, and that’s probably down to how rare they are to come by. Sometimes, someone shows up and absolutely impresses everyone, hitting multiple fields with incredible contributions that quickly become the stuff of history. Temi Żammit is one such man for Malta.

Full name Themistocles (yes, we know), this guy was a local archaeologist, doctor, writer, researcher, chemistry professor and the first director of the National Museum of Archeology. Yes, all of those things. Talk about a turn-of-the-century hero.

Żammit specialised in bacteriology after graduating in medicine (London and Paris), and he’s remembered as the guy who saved millions of people from dying by simply drinking a glass of milk. He totally kicked undulant fever’s butt with his discovery, which was simple yet important: it was all the goats’ fault.

Id-Deni Irqiq was this weird microbe present in most goats’ blood and was totally killing people all over our islands. The disease inflamed the spleen and gave the afflicted excruciating bone and joint pain, fever and eventually death.

Shepherds used to go around the island with their goats to sell super fresh milk to the locals, and one really assumed that the milk had to be processed in any way before consumption. Of course, that’s before Temi had a say about it.

In 1905, he made history with a vital discovery; Brucellosis melitensis present in the blood of the milked goats was the main course of undulant fever among humans, and had to first be processed. By 1938, the pasteurisation of milk became obligatory in Malta.

Themistocles, on the other hand, was knighted, and became the legendary Sir Temi Żammit.

Żammit introduced the first X-ray pictures ever in Malta and wrote multiple papers for the British Medical Journal. And believe it or not, that’s not even the end of it all.

We also need to thank Temi for other cool stuff like the excavation of Għar Dalam, Mnajdra, the Hypogeum, Ħaġar Qim and Tarxien Temples. Yes; the discovery of all those iconic archaeological sites in Malta – many of which are unmatched in the world – are all thanks to Sir Temi Żammit.

Żammit was also the first guy to come up with this brilliant idea in 1934 which was only first implemented up to a couple of years ago.

This shelter was designed by Żammit to protect the Tarxien temples shortly after they were discovered. It was designed as a tent to prevent the elements from completely ruining the precious site.

Concrete was used instead of the tent to restore the megaliths, because slapping concrete on stuff was better than actually protecting them in the first place back in the day.

How we imagine Sir Temi would react every single time someone told him he was an absolute legend

Clearly, Sir Temi Żammit is one of Malta’s legends. He’s had everything from a street in Mġarr the University’s theatre hall named after him, and the Maltese islands owe this all-rounder a whole lot.

Do you know of any other interesting Maltese personalities we should cover? Leave us a comment below and tag someone who’d love to read about the awesome Sir Temi Żammit!

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