Resumen

Emanuel Timone, a native of the Greek island of Chios and graduate of Padua and Oxford Universities, first employed the term “inoculation” of smallpox. This method was largely employed in the XVIII century. Nevertheless, in 1798, the English physician Edward Jenner published the results of his observations and his own clinical experience with “vaccination”, i.e., the inoculation of cowpox as exposed in his book “Inquiry into the causes and effects of the variolae vaccinae”. This method soon substituted the variolization. However, it must to be mentioned that, since 1770, nonmedical personnel, for example the schoolteacher, Peter Plett, had performed vaccination in northern Europe. Notwithstanding some initial opposition, vaccination quickly spread throughout Europe. It arrived to Spain in 1801 and thence was transferred to Spanish America and the Philippines Islands, thanks to an expedition lead by the Alicantean physician, Francisco Xavier Balmis. This expedition reached New Spain in June 1804, and remained there until February 1805, when it embarked towards the Philippine Islands. The other group, lead by physician José Salvani embarked to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia where Salvani died.

Palabras clave: Smallpox. Inoculation of smallpox. Cowpox. Vaccination. Jenner’s precursors. Jenner’s followers.

2013-07-24   |   554 visitas   |   Evalua este artículo 0 valoraciones

Vol. 63 Núm.1. Enero-Enero 2011 Pags. 84-89 Rev Invest Clin 2011; 63(1-ENGLISH)