Last week in Polymath Book 9 we were discussing vaccinations and innoculation, and how could they have possibly brought vaccines across the Atlantic to the Americas, (What problems could there have been? Brainstorm! Press the spoiler below to get the answer!)
The most challenging issue - no refrigeration! How can you make sure the disease is active when it takes weeks to cross the Ocean?
When I visited the Archive of the Indies in Seville. Spain - where they keep all the records of trade and governance from when Seville was the most important administrative city in the world! I came across this curious document - it's in Spanish, but what can you see? (It's not entirely clear from the photo, but hit the spoiler to see what it is!)
Yes - that's right (or if you guessed wrong - no, how could you think that?) It's a list of boys' names - orphans to be precise, children who had no mother or father, or anyone to care for them.
What about the label to the above piece of paper? It's in Spanish, but perhaps you can guess some of the words!
Could you guess that it says? Royal philanthropic expedition for the vaccine against smallpox [an awful disease] Name list of the chldren that carried the vaccine from New Spain [modern day México] to the Phillipines in 1809 What? They used children to take the vaccine around the world? To find out more about the vaccines and innoculation in general, and the story of those poor children in general, see this marvellous article from AMusing Planet - Balmis Expedition: How Orphans Took The Smallpox Vaccine Around The World
That's amazing, David. Possibly terrible or terrifying for these poor children, but who knows what became of them afterwards? Perhaps they were treated to some reward for their contribution (one can only hope!).