Balmis Expedition
A Spanish medical expedition led by the physician Francisco Javier de Balmis and sent out by Charles IV carried Jenner’s smallpox vaccine to the Americas and Asia. The live vaccine was kept going in a chain: orphan children on board were vaccinated in turn, one from another.
- Date
- 30 November 1803 – 14 August 1806exact date · duration: ≈ 3 years
- Place
- Caracastoday: Caracas, Venezuela · Latin America
- Route
- A Coruña → Santa Cruz de Tenerife → San Juan (Puerto Rico) → Puerto Cabello → Caracas → Havana → Veracruz → Mexico City → Acapulco → Manila → Macau → Jamestown (Saint Helena) → Lisbon
- Participants
- Spanish Empire, Francisco Javier de Balmis
- Threads
- The world in the Age of Revolution
- Also known as
- Королевская филантропическая экспедиция вакцины; Real Expedición Filantrópica de la Vacuna
The corvette María Pita sailed from A Coruña on 30 November 1803 with 22 boys from orphanages, looked after by the rectoress of an orphanage, Isabel Zendal. By way of the Canary Islands and Puerto Rico the expedition reached Venezuela in March 1804, and in Caracas the first vaccination board in the Americas was set up. At La Guaira the expedition split: Balmis’s deputy José Salvany led his group to New Granada and Peru (he died in Cochabamba in 1810), while Balmis went on to Cuba and New Spain.
Taking on another 26 Mexican children at Acapulco, Balmis crossed the Pacific on the Manila galleon and vaccinated people in the Philippines, Macau and Canton; on the way back he persuaded the British to allow vaccination on Saint Helena, and on 14 August 1806 he arrived in Lisbon. Jenner himself wrote that he knew of no example in history of philanthropy so noble and so extensive. The route on the map is that of Balmis; the event is placed at Caracas.
Connections
Causes and preconditions
- Edward Jenner’s cowpox vaccination14 May 1796 · Western and Central Europethe Spanish expedition carried Jenner’s vaccine across the Americas and Asia
Same participants
- Haitian Revolutionbetween 21 August and 22 August 1791 – 1 January 1804 · Latin Americavia Spanish Empire
- Battle of Trafalgar21 October 1805 · Western and Central Europevia Spanish Empire
Adjacent events in the thread
- Haitian Declaration of Independence1 January 1804 · Latin America
- Premiere of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony7 April 1805 · Western and Central Europe
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within a year of this event
Western and Central Europe
- Premiere of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony7 April 1805
- Coronation of Napoleon2 December 1804
- Battle of Trafalgar21 October 1805
- Battle of Austerlitz20 November (2 December) 1805
- Napoleonic Code (French Civil Code)21 March 1804
+ 4 events
Eastern Europe
- First Russian circumnavigation26 July (7 August) 1803 – 7 (19) August 1806
Balkans and Anatolia
- First Serbian Uprising14 February 1804 – 7 October 1813
Middle East and Egypt
Africa
- Battle of Blaauwberg and the capture of the Cape Colony8–18 January 1806
- Jihad of Usman dan Fodio21 February 1804 – 1808
South Asia
- Battle of Assaye23 September 1803
East Asia
- Rezanov’s embassy to Japan26 September (8 October) 1804 – April 1805
- White Lotus Rebellionbetween 1794 and 1796 – 1804
North America
- Lewis and Clark Expedition14 May 1804 – 23 September 1806
- Louisiana Purchase30 April – 20 December 1803
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Balmis Expedition
- Wikipedia (Russian): Экспедиция Бальмиса
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Real Expedición Filantrópica de la Vacuna
- Mark C., Rigau-Pérez J. G. The World's First Immunization Campaign: The Spanish Smallpox Vaccine Expedition, 1803–1813 // Bulletin of the History of Medicine. — 2009. — Vol. 83, no. 1. — P. 63–94.
- Wikidata: Q1217655