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Balmis ExpeditionBalmis Expedition was a three year mission to the Americas led by Dr Francisco Javier de Balmis with the aim of giving thousands the smallpox vaccine. He set off from A Coruña on 30 November 1803. It may be considered the first international sanitary expedition in history1. King Charles IV of Spain supported his royal doctor Balmis, since his daughter María Luísa had suffered the illness. The expedition occurred on the Maria Pita ship and carried 22 orphan boys (8 to 10 years old) as successive carriers in vivo of the vaccine, Balmis, a deputy surgeon, two assistants, two first-aid practitioners, three nurses, and Isabel López de Gandalia, the rectoress of Casa de Expósitos an A Coruña orphanage2. Additional recommended knowledge
The courseThe mission took the vaccine to the Canary Islands, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, the Philippines and China.3 The ship carried also scientific instruments and translations of the Historical and Practical Treatise on the Vaccine by Moreau de Sarthe to be distributed to the local vaccine commissions to be founded. Puerto RicoThe local population was already inoculated with a vaccine carried from the Danish colony Saint Thomas. VenezuelaThe expedition divided at La Guayra.
Mexico (1805)In Mexico, Balmis took 25 orphans to maintain the vaccine during the crossing of the Pacific. PhilippinesThey received help from the church. Balmis dismissed back to Mexico the gross of the expedition and went further to China. ChinaBalmis landed on Macau and went also to Canton. ReturnOn his way back to Spain, Balmis convinced the authorities of Saint Helena (1806) to take the vaccine. The discoverer of the vaccine Edward Jenner himself wrote "I don’t imagine the annals of history furnish an example of philanthropy so noble, so extensive as this.” Fictional accountJulia Alvarez wrote a fictional account of the expedition from the perspective of its only female member in Saving the World. Notes
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Balmis_Expedition". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia. |