Doscientos años de la vacunación antivariolosa / 200 years of the smallpox vaccine

RESUMO

The expression "inoculation of smallpox" was first employed by Emanuele Timone, native of Chios island and graduated from the Universities of Padua and Oxford. He learned about this procedure in Constantinople. This method was introduced in North America, during the great epidemic outbreak of 1721, by two Bostonian citizens Cotton Mather and Zabdiel Boylston. The French physician Henri Etienne Morel introduced the procedure into New Spain during the smallpox epidemic of 1779. Nevertheless only in 1798 the English physician Edward Jenner published the results of his observations and experience concerning the "vaccination" in his book "Inquiry into the cause and effects of the variolae vaccinae." After some initial oppositions, this method rapidly spreaded to the rest of Europe. It arrived to Spain in 1801 and thence was transferred to Spanish America and Philippine Islands with the expedition leaded by Francisco Xavier Balmis. Along the XIX century the methods for obtaining and keeping the vaccine were notably improved. Both Jenner and Balmis are worthy of remembrance as great humanity benefactors.