Joseph Demarco


Joseph Demarco was a Maltese medical practitioner, a scientist, and a major philosopher. His areas of specialisation in philosophy were mostly philosophical psychology and physiology.
Demarco's extensive interests make him quite unique. Indeed, though his main concern was human health, in his case this must be understood in the widest of meanings. Certainly, he was fascinated by the mechanisms of the human body, but also with its infirmities, especially within their psychological and social contexts. This brought him to be very much attracted to the philosophical underpinnings of the human condition in all of its aspects. Both his life and his writings are proof enough of this.

Life

Beginnings

Demarco was born on January 2, 1718, at Cospicua, Malta. This seaport and dry-dock hub was also a place where many different peoples congregated. More so since the then Grand Master of the Knights Hospitallers, António Manoel de Vilhena, had given free entry to the harbours to all nations.
Fortunate enough to be born within a well-off family, Demarco was given a good education, probably at the Collegium Melitense of the Jesuits in Valletta, Malta. From an early age, his eyes were set on the medical profession, one highly regarded and very much encouraged by the Knights Hospitallers. Already as a young boy, his medical intellectual curiosity drew him to speculate about the effect of atmospheric conditions on the human body, as his writing from 1933, at only fifteen years of age, attests. Of course, he was also very much interested in understanding physical illnesses, as his writing from 1741, on swellings caused by liquid retention, shows. In addition, he was from an early age piqued by instances of pathological madness, common to congested urban areas as his home-town, Cospicua, was, and made some particular observations about the phenomenon around 1742.
However, during this formative time Demarco also entertained interests in other scientific areas. Still in his early twenties, around 1742 he engaged himself in speculations on standard trigonometry and elementary arithmetic, giving them also some philosophical depth. During the same period, he wrote short studies on hydrostatics in general and on hydrostatic sources and technology.

France interlude

At just 24 years of age, in 1742, Demarco went to France to pursue a medical degree. Naturally, this was made possible by his parents’ financial resources. He studied at the University of Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon région of the south of France. In particular, he studied under the renowned physician and botanist, François Boissier de Sauvages de Lacroix. This is also attested by a document written by Demarco, Physiologie Cursus: Anatomico – meccanico – experimentalis which originates from De Sauvages’ course on the subject.
Demarco's writings during this period bear out to his professional and proficient stance in medical matters. In particular, one may note his investigations dealing with chest and abdominal ailments. In all probability, it was this dexterity and expertise which convinced his lecturers to trust him, from amongst his peers, with a course on physics. This must have been highly prestigious for the young freshman.
Having completed his two-year course in medicine, Demarco defended his thesis in 1743. It was entitled Dissertatio Physiologica de Respiratione, ejusque Uso Primario. The work was published a year later, in 1744, at Montpellier.

Malta period

Demarco returned to Malta as Doctor of Medicine, but also with a keen eye on social affairs. It seems that his acquaintance with Illuminist philosophy while in France enhanced his sensitivity towards communal needs and societal acclimatisation. Nevertheless, throughout his long career he never directly involved himself in any political activity, not even when the French Revolution erupted on the European scene.
His commitment was of a purely medical nature. And if every now and then he reached out into philosophical spheres, he always did this in strict relationship to his medical speculations. Demarco, in fact, did not seem sympathetic towards any revolutionary beliefs or objectives. On the contrary, he was a close collaborator and a personal friend of the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitallers, Manuel Pinto da Fonseca, who immediately, on Demarco's return to Malta, chose him as Principle Medical Officer for the Maltese Islands. His loyalty to the Knights Hospitallers went unblemished throughout his entire life.

Professional career

Demarco's main professional asset was his sharp eye for observation. This is amply attested by the thirty-four works we have from his forty-two-year career in Malta after his return from Paris. All of his speculative reflections, including his philosophical ones, squarely rest on the authority of concrete experience and on pure sense data.
Though highly proficient from a professional point of view, Demarco was consistently appealed by the theoretical foundations of the medical art and by the intellectual and academic relationships which particular illnesses suggested. As seen from his various works, he inquired into philosophy in general, social philosophy, physics, pathology, mechanical physics, experimental philosophy, philosophical physiology, science in general, and various other fields of an academic and rational nature.
In 1788, when Demarco was 70 years of age, the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitallers, Emmanuel de Rohan-Polduc, requested that he went to Tripoli, then an Ottoman province, to see to the health of the pasha there, who was gravely ill. This incident demonstrates the high esteem in which Demarco was held. Not only was the matter complicated from medical point of view, but also politically sensitive. Fortunately, the mission was a success, and Demarco's standing was never as strong. While in Tripoli he continued to indulge his scientific and philosophical curiosity by making copiousness notes about the quality of the soil, the atmosphere, and also about local customs. He even took down observations about various illnesses and diseases, particularly on the types of pathological madness he encountered there.

Death

On his return to Malta, Demarco showed serious signs of physical decline. The Order of Knights Hospitallers which he loved was fatally in trouble, not only because of the revolution in France, but also for its internal bankruptcy, corruption, and loose morals. It seemed that Demarco was passing away together with a whole age.
He died at Cospicua, his home-town, on August 13, 1793, and was buried at the parish church at Cospicua.

Published works

Demarco's published works are just a handful. They are the following. While the latter three are of some interest to philosophy, the first is of a medical interest only.
All of Demarco's manuscripts are held at the National Library of Malta in Valletta, and still in their manuscript form. Though some interest in the man's activities and intellectual endeavours had always been kept alive amongst academics, little serious effort had ever been made to bring his scientific and philosophical accomplishments fully out in the open. The ones commented upon here are solely those which retain some philosophical interest. Of course, from a medical point of view all of his works would be relevant and worthy of thorough comprehension.
All manuscripts are written in Demarco's typical minuscule, crammed and barely legible handwriting, which of course makes reading, transliteration, translation and study immensely difficult. This is one of the most pertinent reasons, amongst others, for which Demarco's intellectual enterprise remains unexplored completely unto this day.

Philosophy

The following manuscripts are not considered to have any philosophical purport. Of course, they might have significant medical relevance. Nevertheless, as such they do not concern the main interest of this page. They are thus remained without comment or analysis.

Medical

As those immediately above, these manuscripts do not command any direct philosophical interest. Despite their medical relevance, they are left without comment here since they do not concern the objective of this page.

Medical

Joseph Demarco has rarely been considered holistically. Medical academics have concentrated on some of his works which deal with health issues, philosophers have focused on works which have philosophical significance, and classicists have directed their attention to one or two of his works which offer interesting Latin features. Notwithstanding, no comprehensive and wide-ranging study of the man, his times and his accomplishments has ever been made. This is direly wanting.
As seen above, the larger part of Demarco's works are still in manuscript form, and this makes them impossible to be studied. Though the outlines of some of his work are generally identified and acknowledged, the greater number of his compositions remain unfamiliar and shrouded in obscurity.
With regard to philosophy in particular, a systematic and critical study of Demarco is still to be done. In general, it cannot be said that his philosophy is known at all, not even in general. This must necessarily entail arduous of transliteration and translation which might well be daunting. Nevertheless, it seems that Demarco certainly merits such attention and consideration.

Dated works in chronological order

  1. 1933 – De Aere
  2. 1741 – De Tumoribus Humoralibus
  3. 1742 – Trattato della Trigonometria Piana
  4. 1742 – Breve Compendio dell’Idrostatica
  5. c. 1742 – Tractatus de Rabie
  6. c. 1742 – Vulgaris Arithmeticæ Elementaris Theoria
  7. c. 1742 – Trattato de Fonti e Machine Adrostiche
  8. 1743 – Dissertatio Physiologica de Respiratione, ejusque Uso Primario
  9. 1745 – Tractatus De Morbis Pectoris
  10. 1745 – De Morbis Abdominis
  11. 1745 – Traité de Physique
  12. 1747 – De Voce Sana et Morbosa
  13. 1747 – Tractatus in moltiplicis Vene Sectionis
  14. 1747 – Del Fegato e De Polmone
  15. 1748 – Tractatus Mechanicus de Non Naturalibus
  16. 1748–60 – Commentarius in Sylvam
  17. c. 1750 – Delle Torture
  18. 1754 – Epistola Dedicatoria
  19. 1755 – De Restenosis
  20. 1756 – De Febribus Acutis
  21. 1756 – Tractatus de Multiplicis Venæ Sectionis
  22. 1759 – De Hydrope
  23. 1759 – De Lana
  24. c. 1760 – De Logica
  25. c. 1760 – Varia
  26. 1760 – Atrium in Universam Physicam Experimentalem
  27. 1760 – De Chocholata
  28. 1763 – Generalis Philosophiæ Atrium
  29. 1763–87 – Fasti: Morborum Melitensis
  30. 1764 – Dell’Osteologia
  31. 1764 – De Angiologia
  32. 1764 – De Secretione
  33. 1764 – Observationes de Morbis Cognoscitivæ Curandisque
  34. 1764 – Tractatus de Affectione
  35. 1765 – Physiologie Cursus: Anatomico – meccanico – experimentalis
  36. 1767 – Historiæ Morborum
  37. 1768 – Nevrologiæ Compendium
  38. 1768 – De Integumentis
  39. 1773 – Mannarino
  40. 1774 – Patologicus Brevis Cursus
  41. 1776 – Tractatus de Voce Sana et Morbosa
  42. 1780 – Therapeutica Nosologia Cutanea
  43. 1781 – De Myologia
  44. 1781 – Tractatus Nosologia Vocalis
  45. 1789 – Materies Medica