Everything about Balmis Expedition totally explained
Balmis 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 history
1.
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 orphanage
2.
The course
The 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 Rico
The local population was already inoculated with a vaccine carried from the Danish colony
Saint Thomas.
Venezuela
The expedition divided at
La Guayra.
- José Salvany, the deputy surgeon, went toward today's Colombia and the Viceroyalty of Peru (Venezuela, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and Bolivia). They took seven years and the toils of the voyage brought death to Salvany (Cochabamba, 1810).
- Balmis went to Caracas and later to Havana. The local poet Andrés Bello wrote an ode to Balmis.
Mexico (1805)
In Mexico, Balmis took 25 orphans to maintain the vaccine during the crossing of the Pacific.
Philippines
They received help from the church. Balmis dismissed back to Mexico the gross of the expedition and went further to China.
China
Balmis landed on Macau and went also to Canton.
Return
On 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 account
Julia Alvarez wrote a fictional account of the expedition from the perspective of its only female member in
Saving the World.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Balmis Expedition'.
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