Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. This is part
Speaker 1: two of our episode on the Royal Philanthropic Vaccine Expedition,
Speaker 1: which was Spain's effort to deliver the smallpox vaccine to
Speaker 1: its colonies and the Americas and the Caribbean, and to
Speaker 1: implement widespread vaccine programs in those colonies once the vaccine
Speaker 1: had been introduced. This expedition involved a human chain of
Speaker 1: boys from foundling homes and charity hospitals who acted as
Speaker 1: living hosts for this vaccine. Last time, we covered the
Speaker 1: basics of smallpox and how the vaccine made its way
Speaker 1: to other parts of the world and sort of the
Speaker 1: the setup for Spain embarking on this. Today we are
Speaker 1: going to talk about the expedition itself, which was authorized
Speaker 1: by Royal Charter on June three, And as we noted
Speaker 1: in part one, the method of vaccinating people for smallpox
Speaker 1: in the early nineteenth century was a little gruesome, and
Speaker 1: most of that detail is in the earlier episode, but
Speaker 1: like you just got to refer back to it in
Speaker 1: talking about this so just note it will be in
Speaker 1: this episode as well. Although Guatemalan doctor Jose Flores had
Speaker 1: advised the Council of the Indies on how to approach
Speaker 1: this expedition, the person who was actually tasked with carrying
Speaker 1: it out was expedition director Francisco Xavier de Balmas Berenger.
Speaker 1: Balmas was a physician and army surgeon who had been
Speaker 1: born in seventeen fifty three. He had been named Honorary
Speaker 1: Surgeon of the Chamber of King Carlos the fourth of Spain,
Speaker 1: and he had gone on earlier voyages to the America's
Speaker 1: to study and collect medicinal plants, so he already had
Speaker 1: some experience at sea and some familiarity with some of
Speaker 1: their destinations. Balmas was also experienced at administering vaccines. He
Speaker 1: had been one of the foremost vaccinators in Madrid. He
Speaker 1: had also translated French physician Jacques Louis Moreau de la
Speaker 1: Starts Historical and Practical Treatise on the Vaccine into Spanish,
Speaker 1: and in addition to carrying the vaccine to the America's,
Speaker 1: this voyage would also carry Spanish language copies of this
Speaker 1: book to distribute to health authorities while they were there.
Speaker 1: The expedition's goals were to deliver the vaccine to the
Speaker 1: Spanish colonies, to train local personnel to administer the vaccine,
Speaker 1: preserve the lymph and keep the program going over time,
Speaker 1: and to establish a vaccine board at each stop that
Speaker 1: would keep records about who had been vaccinated. Balmus His
Speaker 1: team for the expedition included assistant director Jose Salvani, along
Speaker 1: with other surgeons, nurses, and practitioners. The only woman aboard
Speaker 1: was Isabelle de Zendala Egomez, who was the rectoress of
Speaker 1: the Cassada Expositos, or the found House in La Coruna, Spain.
Speaker 1: Her name is presented and spelled multiple different ways in
Speaker 1: records of the day, so there's some fuzziness there. She
Speaker 1: was the person who was ultimately responsible for the care
Speaker 1: of twenty two boys between the ages of three and nine,
Speaker 1: four of them from the foundling house that she was
Speaker 1: the rectress of and the rest of them from a
Speaker 1: charity hospital in La Coruna. One of these boys was
Speaker 1: Benito Vallez, who Isabel had adopted. Here are the names
Speaker 1: of the other twenty whose names we actually know, along
Speaker 1: with their ages. When the voyage arrived in Mexico Juan
Speaker 1: Francisco and Francisco Antonio aged nine, Andre's Naya age eight,
Speaker 1: Vicente Ferraire, Antonio Verredia, Candido and Geronimo Maria aged seven,
Speaker 1: Clemente Domingo, Nio, Jose, Manuel Maria and Jacinto aged six,
Speaker 1: Francisco Florencio and Juan Antonio aged five, and Pascual and
Speaker 1: Niceto Martin Thomas Metiton, Jose, Jorge, Nicolas de la Dolores,
Speaker 1: Manuel Maria Jose and Vicente Marl Salle Velito, all of
Speaker 1: whom were aged three. As far as we knew, all
Speaker 1: of these boys had either been orphaned or abandoned by
Speaker 1: their birth parents, and the way these foundling houses and
Speaker 1: charity hospitals worked in Spain was that abandoned or orphaned
Speaker 1: infants would be brought to them, and after they'd been processed,
Speaker 1: they would be placed with a wet nurse in the community,
Speaker 1: who would be paid a small stipend for her work.
Speaker 1: Older children were sometimes placed with foster families, but often
Speaker 1: they lived in poverty. For the children selected for this voyage,
Speaker 1: though King Carlos the Fourth promised special protection and an
Speaker 1: education at the government's expense once they arrived in Mexico,
Speaker 1: as well as employment once they were old enough to work,
Speaker 1: so in terms of what they were promised when they
Speaker 1: were star out, it was going to be a long
Speaker 1: sea voyage followed by a life that was supposed to
Speaker 1: be better than what they were experiencing in Spain. Originally,
Speaker 1: this voyage had been planned for a larger ship, but
Speaker 1: it ultimately took place aboard a corvette called the Maria
Speaker 1: Pita under the command of Pedro de Barco. A corvette
Speaker 1: was faster than a frigate, but it's smaller size naturally
Speaker 1: presented some challenges over the course of the voyage. The
Speaker 1: boys were going to be vaccinated in pairs every nine
Speaker 1: or ten days, just in case one of the vaccines
Speaker 1: didn't take, but this also meant that there would always
Speaker 1: be two boys on board with an itchy cow pox
Speaker 1: blister who were living and playing with twenty other boys
Speaker 1: in very confined quarters. Since anything from scratching to rolling
Speaker 1: over in your sleep could damage the blister, and rough
Speaker 1: housing could potentially lead a child to be infected with
Speaker 1: the cow pox by accident, Isabelle Desendala had to keep
Speaker 1: a careful watch on these kids at all times. This
Speaker 1: sounds like the worst assignment on earth to me, but
Speaker 1: crazed her for doing it. Boma's immunized the first two
Speaker 1: boys in the chain, using limp for people he had
Speaker 1: previously immunized in Spain, and then the Maria Pita set
Speaker 1: sail on November three. They stopped first in the Canary
Speaker 1: Islands off the northwest coast of Africa to distribute the
Speaker 1: vaccine there, and then from there they sailed for Puerto Rico,
Speaker 1: where they arrived on February ninth, eighteen o four. This
Speaker 1: trans atlantic crossing was difficult, as any trans atlantic crossing
Speaker 1: was likely to be at this point. By the time
Speaker 1: they got to Puerto Rico, many of the children had
Speaker 1: developed scurvy, and one of them had actually died from it.
Speaker 1: And this is the one child whose name was not
Speaker 1: recorded when they got to Mexico, so we don't know
Speaker 1: what his name was. Balma is expected to be welcomed
Speaker 1: in Puerto Rico with excitement and relief. As we noted
Speaker 1: in Part one, the monarch had sent instructions to all
Speaker 1: of the Spanish colonies to expect the expedition and to
Speaker 1: prepare for its arrival, but to balmuss surprise, the vaccine
Speaker 1: had already been introduced to Puerto Rico. So, like other
Speaker 1: parts of the Spanish Empire, Puerto Rico had been trying
Speaker 1: to control a smallpox outbreak, and military surgeon Francisco oh
Speaker 1: Year heard that the vaccine had already been introduced to
Speaker 1: the nearby island of St. Thomas, which at the time
Speaker 1: was part of the Danish West Indies. There are several
Speaker 1: possible ways that the vaccine got to St. Thomas. This
Speaker 1: is one of the many rabbit holes I went down
Speaker 1: that I alluded to in Part one that kept this
Speaker 1: from being just a single, one part episode. St. Thomas
Speaker 1: had been under British control in eighteen o one and
Speaker 1: eighteen o two, and at that point Brittain had started
Speaker 1: vaccinating at Sailors. The Danish Royal Institute for Vaccination had
Speaker 1: also sent vaccine samples to the Danish West Indians in
Speaker 1: eighteen o two, and John Johnston, who was a physician,
Speaker 1: had brought the vaccine from continental North America to the
Speaker 1: island of Saint Croix in eighteen o three. It likely
Speaker 1: spread to other Caribbean islands from there. I mean a
Speaker 1: lot of these islands are close enough together that regardless
Speaker 1: of who controlled it in terms of colonies, people went
Speaker 1: among them all the time, regardless of which of these
Speaker 1: was the source of vaccine in St. Thomas. When all
Speaker 1: Year heard about its existence there, he asked them to
Speaker 1: send samples. The first ones he got had no effect
Speaker 1: when he tried to use them, but his second attempt worked.
Speaker 1: Even though Governor Ramon de Castro knew that the expedition
Speaker 1: was on its way, he thought that the situation in
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico was too dire to wait around for it,
Speaker 1: so he instructed Ollier to start distributing the vaccine widely. However,
Speaker 1: the governor did insist that his administration do everything they
Speaker 1: could to make sure the expedition's time in Puerto Rico
Speaker 1: went smoothly to avoid ruffling any feathers for having taken
Speaker 1: This initiative did not work at all. Bomas took the
Speaker 1: existing vaccine program in Puerto Rico really badly. A lot
Speaker 1: of colonial accounts about this expedition really described him as
Speaker 1: being arrogant and stubborn. This included writing off local health
Speaker 1: authorities as ignorant and inexperienced, even if they had already
Speaker 1: conceived and implemented an entire vaccination program on their own
Speaker 1: before he got there. In Puerto Rico, this led to
Speaker 1: a prolonged dispute and which Bombas tried to publicly undermine
Speaker 1: what oh Year had done and claimed that the vaccine
Speaker 1: that oh Year was using was ineffective since oh Year
Speaker 1: had already vaccinated more than fire people at this point.
Speaker 1: This was a problem. Also in the window between when
Speaker 1: the vaccine was introduced to Puerto Rico and when Balmas arrived,
Speaker 1: people had been so excited about vaccines that children literally
Speaker 1: vaccinated each other as a game, so some of Balmas's
Speaker 1: concern earns about effacacy were probably pretty well founded. So
Speaker 1: Bombas pointed out a couple of cases in which someone
Speaker 1: who OH Year had vaccinated later developed smallpox or developed
Speaker 1: a cow pox store after being re vaccinated by someone
Speaker 1: from the expedition. It is likely this really happened because
Speaker 1: things are not a hundred percent effective. All Year, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, noted that these were outliers and that
Speaker 1: the vast majority of people who were re vaccinated after
Speaker 1: the expedition arrived had no reaction to that vaccine at all,
Speaker 1: so their earlier vaccine had presumably been effective. Both the
Speaker 1: governor and oh Year were sent lengthy correspondence back to
Speaker 1: Spain describing a lot of hostility and arrogance on bombas part. Overall,
Speaker 1: as you have just heard, this first Shop in the
Speaker 1: America's did not go well for the expedition. They spent
Speaker 1: four weeks in Puerto Rico, and although they administered vaccines,
Speaker 1: they did not set up a vaccine board to keep
Speaker 1: standardized records for the program. Then they faced a prolonged
Speaker 1: wait for favorable winds before they could sit sail again,
Speaker 1: and it took so long that they had to seek
Speaker 1: out additional unvaccinated children to bring on board with them
Speaker 1: to keep that chain going. Even then, by the time
Speaker 1: they finally made landfall again in Venezuela, they had no
Speaker 1: unvaccinated children remaining on board and only one cow pox
Speaker 1: store that was ready to produce vaccine. The expedition nearly
Speaker 1: failed at this point, something Balma's squarely blamed entirely on
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico. However, the chain was not broken at this point.
Speaker 1: Bomas's team was able to vaccinate twenty eight children and
Speaker 1: Puerto Cabello, Venezuela before they moved on. You know, talk
Speaker 1: about where the expedition went from there after a quick
Speaker 1: sponsor break, The Royal Philanthropic Vaccine Expedition hoped to vaccinate
Speaker 1: as many people as possible, establishing tracking and record keeping
Speaker 1: procedures that would allow vaccination programs to continue in Spain's
Speaker 1: colonies long into the future after the expedition was over.
Speaker 1: So to that end, they vaccinated people, most often children,
Speaker 1: at every city where they stopped. Often people from outlying
Speaker 1: villages would bring a child or children to have them vaccinated,
Speaker 1: and then returned to continue vaccinations in the place they
Speaker 1: had come from nine or ten days later, or a
Speaker 1: few expedition members would carry the vaccine to a more
Speaker 1: outlying community. At various points, they also tried vaccinating cows,
Speaker 1: hoping to establish a natural reservoir of cow pox in
Speaker 1: the Americas for the future use. This did not work
Speaker 1: though cows. However, after they made multiple stops in Venezuela,
Speaker 1: it quickly became clear that all of this was really
Speaker 1: just too big of a job for one team, so
Speaker 1: Ball to split the expedition in half, with him directing
Speaker 1: one team and Jose Salvani directing the other. Salvanni's team
Speaker 1: traveled south farther into the continent of South America, while
Speaker 1: Balmas set sail again, this time bound for Cuba. Each
Speaker 1: had Venezuelan boys to act as vaccine hosts, and the
Speaker 1: boys who had originally set sail from Spain all remained
Speaker 1: with Balmas, Although those twenty two boys are the ones
Speaker 1: most often mentioned in the context of this expedition, Local
Speaker 1: children also worked as vaccine carriers after the expedition arrived
Speaker 1: in the America's Sometimes they were recruited from local families
Speaker 1: and then returned later on, and sometimes they were enslaved.
Speaker 1: Salvanni's team had the more perilous journey after the expedition split.
Speaker 1: The South American landscape is highly varied and often extremely treacherous,
Speaker 1: and a lot of their route went through mountains and rainforests.
Speaker 1: As they vaccinated people for smallpox, they faced tropical illnesses themselves.
Speaker 1: They started out following the Magdalena River, but their ship
Speaker 1: was wrecked in what's now Colombia not long after they
Speaker 1: set sail. They were sheltered by the local indigenous people,
Speaker 1: who Salvanese team vaccinated. As they salvaged their ship and
Speaker 1: tried to get ready to go again. They got to Cartagena,
Speaker 1: which was then known as Cartagena to India's on four.
Speaker 1: After vaccinating at least two thousand people, they again split
Speaker 1: into two groups, each heading in a different direction through Colombia,
Speaker 1: before rendezvousing at Santa Fe de Bogota. Salvanni became seriously
Speaker 1: ill during this expedition, contracting tuberculosis and losing his vision
Speaker 1: in one eye, which might have been a result of
Speaker 1: the tuberculosis, or it could have been some other infection.
Speaker 1: It's a little unclear. One of Salvani's major stumbling blocks
Speaker 1: happened when they got to Lima, Peru. It turned out
Speaker 1: that the vaccine had already made its way to Lima
Speaker 1: thanks to the Vicetroy of Buenos Aires. And although this
Speaker 1: was not the first time that the expedition reached a
Speaker 1: place only to find that the vaccine was already there,
Speaker 1: it was the first time that local authorities just did
Speaker 1: not want to adopt the expedition's procedures for administration and
Speaker 1: tracking at all. Vaccinations had become a for profit business
Speaker 1: in Lima, and local doctors didn't want to lose a
Speaker 1: potential source of their income. The expeditions procedures were only
Speaker 1: adopted after a new viceroy in Lima supported them. Salvanni's
Speaker 1: leg of the expedition went on for seven years, moving
Speaker 1: through and sailing around South America before returning to Spain.
Speaker 1: Salvanni did not make the return voyage home, though he
Speaker 1: died in Bolivia in eighteen ten, to return to Bombas
Speaker 1: in the other half of the expedition, he vaccinated roughly
Speaker 1: twelve thousand people in Venezuela before departing for Cuba, taking
Speaker 1: four enslaved boys with him to act as vaccine hosts,
Speaker 1: and once he got there it turned out once again
Speaker 1: that the vaccine had already been introduced. Medical authorities in
Speaker 1: Cuba had been trying to get the vaccine, but their
Speaker 1: intentional efforts had all failed. For example, vials of lymph
Speaker 1: that were sent from Philadelphia were unsurprisingly not effective anymore
Speaker 1: by the time they got to Cuba. But then, in
Speaker 1: eighteen o four, a woman named Dona Maria b was
Speaker 1: Demente left Puerto Rico bound for Cuba the day after
Speaker 1: her son and two maids had been vaccinated. Their vaccine
Speaker 1: sites were ready to be propagated shortly after their arrival.
Speaker 1: Was just sort of a coincidence that she wound up
Speaker 1: in Cuba with ready to harvest vaccine. As the Cuban
Speaker 1: authorities were trying to do that. Dr Thomas Roma Chacon
Speaker 1: used the lymph to start his own vaccination campaign, so
Speaker 1: by the time Balmas arrived, thousands of people had already
Speaker 1: been vaccinated. Many of Romay's recipients were enslaved Africans who
Speaker 1: did not have the freedom to refuse it. This did
Speaker 1: not go quite as poorly as the expedition's visit to
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico had. Bomas seems to have approached the situation
Speaker 1: in Cuba with like less overt hostility to the local authorities.
Speaker 1: This may have been because Romi took the step of
Speaker 1: demonstrating that his vaccines had been effective by vary elating
Speaker 1: his own sons, who he had vaccinated himself. They had
Speaker 1: no reaction to this exposure to smallpox. Bomas did implement
Speaker 1: the expedition standardized process for establishing a vaccine board and
Speaker 1: for keeping records in Cuba, something he had not actually
Speaker 1: done back in Puerto Rico. After leaving Cuba, Balmas went
Speaker 1: to Mexico, arriving in Vera Cruz and finding unexpectedly that
Speaker 1: there was no one waiting to be vaccinated, because once again,
Speaker 1: a vaccination program had already been established before he got there.
Speaker 1: The Ayantamiento, or Governing Council, had implemented a huge program
Speaker 1: pleet with registration and tracking, and sending vaccine delegations to
Speaker 1: outlying areas. Balma's was once again at risk of breaking
Speaker 1: his vaccine chain, but ten men were conscripted from the
Speaker 1: Garrison Regiment to act as hosts. These existing vaccine programs
Speaker 1: made Bomas's time in Mexico particularly challenging. He did make
Speaker 1: arrangements for the boys who had traveled from Spain. They
Speaker 1: were to be housed in Mexico City. They were placed
Speaker 1: in the care of the bishop, and they started out
Speaker 1: living at a charitable institution that actually wasn't that much
Speaker 1: different from what they had left in Spain. They were though,
Speaker 1: given academic and religious instruction while they were there, but
Speaker 1: most or possibly all of them were eventually adopted, mostly
Speaker 1: by teachers, merchants, and doctors. But when it came to
Speaker 1: administering vaccines, Balma's had a lot of trouble finding people
Speaker 1: who had not been vaccinated yet. In Mexico City, he
Speaker 1: almost lost his source again, but then the mayor brought
Speaker 1: in a twenty indigenous children and their mothers who were
Speaker 1: described as needing quote much persuasion in Balmus's words, quote
Speaker 1: some admitted that it was right, but that they could
Speaker 1: not pay, and every single one went to the apothecary
Speaker 1: demanding an antidote against the venom that had just been
Speaker 1: introduced into the arm of her child. Yeah, a lot
Speaker 1: of Balmas's expedition staff just does not seem to have
Speaker 1: taken that lesson to heart, uh, that that Jose Flores
Speaker 1: had talked about, like don't traumatize people while you are
Speaker 1: doing this. They seem to have taken a much heavier
Speaker 1: and more aggressive hand A lot of time. Later on,
Speaker 1: some children from a foundling home that the expedition had
Speaker 1: vaccinated became ill, and while this illness was initially blamed
Speaker 1: on Bomas's vaccine, a board of doctors was convened and
Speaker 1: he was cleared from all suspicion. On top of all
Speaker 1: these challenges, Bomas himself was very ill. He had developed
Speaker 1: dysentery and what he believed was yellow fever. En route
Speaker 1: from Cuba to Mexico, Balmus continued westward through Mexico. In
Speaker 1: Wahaka he established vaccine boards and a plan for vaccinating
Speaker 1: the indigenous community situated outside the city. Once he reached
Speaker 1: the western coast of Mexico, he procured a ship to
Speaker 1: continue onto the Philippines. Meanwhile, on May eighteen o four,
Speaker 1: the first smallpox vaccine was administered in Guatemala, using vaccine
Speaker 1: that had been brought from Havana. Bombas faced a series
Speaker 1: of delays when he was trying to leave Mexico. The
Speaker 1: ship that he was supposed to board was full, and
Speaker 1: he and the expedition were denied passage. Rather than waiting
Speaker 1: for another vessel, are really waiting longer for another vessel?
Speaker 1: He traveled over Land's Acapulco, setting sail from there in
Speaker 1: February of eighteen o five aboard the Maggayanas. He had
Speaker 1: a new group of twenty five children on board. Most
Speaker 1: of them were children from Mexico whose parents were compensated
Speaker 1: for their participation Shan. These children were to be returned
Speaker 1: to Mexico after this leg of the expedition was over.
Speaker 1: They were once again in the care of Isabel desnsale
Speaker 1: A Gomez, who remained on board even though her contract
Speaker 1: had only been for the trip to Mexico. Conditions on
Speaker 1: the Magayanas were much worse than they had been on
Speaker 1: the way to the America's from Spain, though they were
Speaker 1: very overcrowded, the ship was generally pretty filthy. Was a
Speaker 1: situation where he traveled to another port of departure and
Speaker 1: got a different ship because he didn't want to wait
Speaker 1: as long as he would have had to otherwise. But
Speaker 1: there are accommodations were not great, and again two dozen
Speaker 1: kids crammed into that yes with two of them at
Speaker 1: a time, having a cow pox store that has to
Speaker 1: be carefully monitored. Balmas's team vaccinated and estimated twenty thou
Speaker 1: people in the Philippines and established a vaccine board before
Speaker 1: continue going on to Macao, which is part of China
Speaker 1: today but at that point it was a Portuguese colony.
Speaker 1: Since this was a short trip, he needed only three
Speaker 1: children to carry the vaccine. From Macau, they traveled to
Speaker 1: other parts of China. Authorities in Canton, which was controlled
Speaker 1: by the Spanish Royal Philippine Company, refused to cooperate with
Speaker 1: the expedition, so Balmus instead took the vaccine to the
Speaker 1: British East India Company. They rounded Africa and stopped at
Speaker 1: the British island of Saint Helena on the way back
Speaker 1: to Spain, where they arrived in July of eighteen oh six,
Speaker 1: having circumnavigated the globe. After this expedition, Bomas was appointed
Speaker 1: Spain's Inspector General of the Vaccine. Sometime around eighteen o
Speaker 1: eight or eighteen o nine, during the Peninsular War, French
Speaker 1: forces sacked his house in Madrid. That was probably when
Speaker 1: his personal journals that detailed this expedition were lost. His
Speaker 1: personality seems to have been unchanged during this time. He
Speaker 1: express repeated frustrations that he was not getting enough correspondence
Speaker 1: from Salvanni about his progress, which was still ongoing through
Speaker 1: South America at this point. These frustrations were in spite
Speaker 1: of the fact that warfare was slowing down the mail
Speaker 1: from South America back to Europe. He also accused Subody
Speaker 1: of being intentionally slow in all of this, even though
Speaker 1: he was covering an enormous amount of difficult to reign
Speaker 1: during these years of the expedition, Balmas sounds real crabby.
Speaker 1: In eighteen o nine, Balma's returned to Mexico to evaluate
Speaker 1: the situation check in on vaccine boards re established lymph
Speaker 1: supplies where they had been lost, and trying to find
Speaker 1: a local source of cowpox if the human to human
Speaker 1: chain should break again. He was still there when the
Speaker 1: Mexican War of Independence started. He got back to Spain
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirteen. He was King Fernando the seventh Chamber Surgeon.
Speaker 1: In an eighteen six team, he was elected to the
Speaker 1: Royal Academy of Medicine. Balmus died in Madrid on February twelve,
Speaker 1: eighteen nineteen, at the age of sixty five. We will
Speaker 1: talk about the impact and the legacy of this expedition
Speaker 1: after another quick sponsor break. In a way, the Royal
Speaker 1: Philanthropic Vaccine Expedition is one giant contradiction. Smallpox only existed
Speaker 1: in the America's because Europeans introduced it there, either through
Speaker 1: their own bodies or through the bodies of enslaved Africans
Speaker 1: who had no choice in all of this. And this
Speaker 1: effort to control smallpox was only possible because Spain had
Speaker 1: already developed such a massive colonial administrative state, with methods
Speaker 1: of communication and payment and organization all ready to go.
Speaker 1: So this expedition essentially approached a serious life or death,
Speaker 1: probably them by building on the source of that problem.
Speaker 1: It used of bureaucracy that had exploited and subjugated, and
Speaker 1: in some cases forcibly converted indigenous peoples to then offer
Speaker 1: them the vaccine to an illness that they had introduced. Also,
Speaker 1: as we noted in Part one, although King Carlos the
Speaker 1: Fourth had some humanitarian goals with this expedition, parts of
Speaker 1: it also rested on exploitation. In some places, enslavers tried
Speaker 1: to protect their investments and productivity by seeking out vaccines
Speaker 1: for their enslaved workforce who had no autonomy over their
Speaker 1: own bodies and did not have the freedom to consent
Speaker 1: to this vaccine. And on the enslaver's part, this wasn't
Speaker 1: just about productivity. It was also about racism and the
Speaker 1: racist idea that people of African descent were dirty or
Speaker 1: we're breeding disease. Over time, this idea spread to free
Speaker 1: people who were living in poverty as well, and mass
Speaker 1: vaccination campaigns targeted poor people by force. Many many aspects
Speaker 1: of the Royal Philanthropic Vaccine Expedition would just not hold
Speaker 1: up today in terms of everything for medical ethics, to
Speaker 1: vaccine safety to general human rights issues. Just focusing on
Speaker 1: those children who acted as carriers. There were sixty two
Speaker 1: of them known to have participated during the course of
Speaker 1: the expedition. Four of them died as a result of
Speaker 1: their involvement. Um we didn't specifically say before the break,
Speaker 1: but those children that were supposed to be returned to
Speaker 1: Mexico were returned to Mexico the fact that their parents
Speaker 1: had been compensated to send them on a voyage where
Speaker 1: they would act as human hosts for a vaccine. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's not a thing that would probably be done today
Speaker 1: fingers crossed. Uh. But at the same time, taking all
Speaker 1: of that into consideration, this was a pretty colossal achievement.
Speaker 1: It's hard to tell just how colossal, though. Estimates of
Speaker 1: how many people the expedition directly immunized are all over
Speaker 1: the place. You'll find numbers anywhere for one thousand to
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand people. But the whole point was to
Speaker 1: establish vaccine programs that would continue after the expedition had
Speaker 1: moved on, and it's hard to tell exactly how many
Speaker 1: people that affected. Even though the expedition established record keeping
Speaker 1: procedures in most of the places it visited, many of
Speaker 1: those records have since been lost through changes in colonial administration,
Speaker 1: revolutions and wars, and really local responses to the vaccine
Speaker 1: were all over the place. Some cities and towns held
Speaker 1: parades to welcome the arrival of the vaccine, and people
Speaker 1: eagerly awaited their turn, while others practically revolted at the idea.
Speaker 1: In Wahaka, for example, a mandatory vaccine program was ended
Speaker 1: after five years because of an uprising against it. In
Speaker 1: some places, the vaccine programs the Expedition established kept going
Speaker 1: in spite of all of that, and in some cases
Speaker 1: they lasted for decades or even more than a century.
Speaker 1: But maintaining an arm to arm source of a vaccine
Speaker 1: is actually really hard. You want to vaccinate everyone because
Speaker 1: you want to eliminate smallpox, but at the same time
Speaker 1: you need enough people who aren't already vaccinated to continue
Speaker 1: to act as vaccine hosts. So in Mexico City, for example,
Speaker 1: this led to a whole process to try to ensure
Speaker 1: that a hundred and sixty four children every year, preferably babies,
Speaker 1: were left unvaccinated. The responsibility for selecting these children was
Speaker 1: then divided up among the different wards of the city.
Speaker 1: This just to me seems like failure waiting to happen. Yes,
Speaker 1: there are so many layers of not okay to this onion.
Speaker 1: On top of the complexity of keeping the chain going,
Speaker 1: a lot of people just didn't want to Getting a
Speaker 1: smallpox vaccine this way was painful. The cow pox store
Speaker 1: was itchy and gross, and having the lymph harvested nine
Speaker 1: or ten days later was also painful. Sometimes parents just
Speaker 1: didn't bring their children back for that second visit, or
Speaker 1: they hid their children when authorities were going house to house.
Speaker 1: There was also a lot of resistance to the vaccine
Speaker 1: in general, some of it justified, but some of it
Speaker 1: based on intentional anti vaccine misinformation. Compounding all of this,
Speaker 1: a lot of officials were just not good at calming
Speaker 1: the fears of anxious children and their families, and instead
Speaker 1: treated everybody who was scared as though they were ignorant
Speaker 1: and backward. Spanish health officials, whether they had been born
Speaker 1: in Spain or in the colonies, often did not approach
Speaker 1: indigenous or African people with any kind of cultural sensitivity
Speaker 1: or basic respect. So unsurprisingly, these kinds of efforts eventually
Speaker 1: broke down in most places, leading health officials to look
Speaker 1: for other sources of vaccine to start up again. Another
Speaker 1: complication involved with this was the realization that the vaccine
Speaker 1: did not confer lifetime immunity to smallpox as people had
Speaker 1: believed it did when it was first introduced. So many
Speaker 1: places that still had vaccine programs going a couple of
Speaker 1: decades after the expedition had to adjust their procedures to
Speaker 1: revaccinate people as their immunity wore off. When guadmal and
Speaker 1: doctor Jose Flores had been asked to advise on how
Speaker 1: to introduce the smallpox vaccine to the America's he had
Speaker 1: praised the cow pox based vaccine as the quote easy
Speaker 1: and safe method to eradicate smallpox and forever liberate the
Speaker 1: inhabitants of those lands from the most frightening contagions. But obviously,
Speaker 1: although this campaign unquestionably save lives, it did not eradicate smallpox.
Speaker 1: Although many of the vaccine programs that were implemented through
Speaker 1: this expedition tried to be thorough, it really really takes
Speaker 1: a coordinated, truly global effort to eradicate a disease entirely.
Speaker 1: The idea of herd immunity was not really articulated until
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century. So long after this was over,
Speaker 1: So the idea that there was sort of a target
Speaker 1: percentage of vaccinated people who would protect everyone was just
Speaker 1: not part of all this planning. So even after the expedition, outbreaks,
Speaker 1: some of them serious, continued to happen all over the
Speaker 1: Spanish Empire. As one example, Spain seeded the Philippines to
Speaker 1: the United States after the Spanish American War, and in
Speaker 1: the interest of protecting American soldiers from the disease, the U. S.
Speaker 1: Army started a vaccination program in the Philippines in nineteen hundred.
Speaker 1: Army officials reported that anywhere from a quarter to a
Speaker 1: third of the people reporting to vaccine clinics had already
Speaker 1: had smallpox, actual smallpox, not cowpox as a vaccine. One
Speaker 1: reason was that the outlying areas relied on getting vaccine
Speaker 1: LIMP from the Central Board in Manila, and in some
Speaker 1: places those supplies were disrupted for years at a time.
Speaker 1: Smallpox was eradicated from South America in nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: so that was more than a hundred and sixty years
Speaker 1: after the expedition. It was declared eradicated worldwide in nine eight,
Speaker 1: So today most people don't get a smallpox vaccine. Those
Speaker 1: who do were generally in rolls, like being a member
Speaker 1: of the military, people who would be at the most
Speaker 1: risk of exposure in the event of a bio terror attack. Also,
Speaker 1: thanks to manufacturing and refrigeration and preservation technologies, the smallpox
Speaker 1: vaccines that exist today do not require this arm to
Speaker 1: arm chain of human hosts. Obviously, they are much safer
Speaker 1: than they were in the nineteenth century. If you'd like
Speaker 1: to read a fictionalized version of this, you can check
Speaker 1: out the novel Saving the World that is by author
Speaker 1: Julia Alvarez. This is also the second time one of
Speaker 1: Julia Alvarez's novels has come up on the show. We
Speaker 1: also talked about her novel In the Time of the
Speaker 1: Butterflies in our episode on the Mirraball Sisters. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: read Saving the World when it very first came out.
Speaker 1: At that time, I was freelancing as a book reviewer
Speaker 1: as a side gig um, and that's actually where I
Speaker 1: first learned about this whole expedition because it's a first person,
Speaker 1: uh not first person, it's a it's a fictional account
Speaker 1: focusing on Isabel as one of the main characters, and
Speaker 1: like her relationship with these boys who were in her care. Um,
Speaker 1: and the whole time I was reading, I was like
Speaker 1: this real, a real human to human chain of children
Speaker 1: that was many years ago. So um. I do not
Speaker 1: remember a lot of detail about the book, but I
Speaker 1: do remember reading it. Do you got some listener mail?
Speaker 1: I do have listener mail. Uh. This listener mail is
Speaker 1: from Lucy and it follows our Unearthed year ends that
Speaker 1: came out at the very beginning of Also, before I
Speaker 1: read it, I just wanted to say thank you to
Speaker 1: everyone who has sent us pictures of their knitting I have.
Speaker 1: I have replied to a lot of those folks to
Speaker 1: say thank you because they've been great, great pictures. But
Speaker 1: thanks to everybody who has done that. So Lucy sent
Speaker 1: this email. Lucy said, I an avid listener of the
Speaker 1: show and always love Unearthed. This time, however, I was
Speaker 1: so excited to hear the story of the missing song
Speaker 1: from the Muppet Christmas Carol. It's my favorite Christmas movie,
Speaker 1: and I sat down to watch it on Christmas Eve
Speaker 1: this year since I was feeling a little blue because
Speaker 1: you know, just as when Love Is Gone should have
Speaker 1: played but didn't. Something in my nearly thirty year old
Speaker 1: brain that has watched the film as many times if
Speaker 1: not more, said wait a minute, where's that song? I
Speaker 1: thought I was losing my mind. I was especially confused
Speaker 1: as I had watched it on a relatively new large
Speaker 1: plus streaming service. Not sure if you can reference that
Speaker 1: by name, and there was no reason to cut for
Speaker 1: time on a TV broadcast. Turns out the DVD version
Speaker 1: must have made its way to that plus streaming service.
Speaker 1: Thanks for proving that I was in fact not imagining
Speaker 1: an entire song from the film, and thanks for everything
Speaker 1: you do on the show. I have really enjoyed it
Speaker 1: for many years. I've attached a picture of my dog
Speaker 1: Cole for no other reason than I know you guys
Speaker 1: typically like to receive fun pet photo. Thanks Lucy. Thanks
Speaker 1: Lucy for the email and for the picture of Coal.
Speaker 1: We've gotten several um sort of different variations on the
Speaker 1: same theme of the song when Love Is Gone uh
Speaker 1: from the Muppet Christmas Carol um. My understanding is that
Speaker 1: the master that they were going to be reused for
Speaker 1: like the four K remaster, had been found, but they
Speaker 1: were not sure as of when it was reported whether
Speaker 1: it was going to be ready to actually broadcast in time.
Speaker 1: For the Christmas holiday. But we've also heard from lots
Speaker 1: of people and like various configurations of recordings of the
Speaker 1: Muppet Christmas Carol that they have and whether they do
Speaker 1: or do not include the song when Love Is Gone. Um.
Speaker 1: I think I saw one this morning where somebody said
Speaker 1: they had both a full screen and a wide screen version,
Speaker 1: and in full screen the song is there, but in
Speaker 1: wide screen the song is not. Um. So anyway, that's
Speaker 1: the ongoing saga of the missing song. UM. Thank you again,
Speaker 1: Lucy for sending this email. If you would like to
Speaker 1: write to us about this or any other podcast, where
Speaker 1: History Podcast at I heart radio dot com and we
Speaker 1: are all over social media and missed in History. That's
Speaker 1: where you'll find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. And
Speaker 1: you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcast and
Speaker 1: the I heart radio app and anywhere else that get podcasts.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of
Speaker 1: I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
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