Balmis Expedition

Balmis Expedition was a three year mission to the Americas led by Dr Francisco Javier de Balmis with the aim of giving thousands the smallpox vaccine. He set off from La Coruña on 30 November 1803. It may be considered the first international sanitary expedition in history1.

King Charles IV of Spain supported his royal doctor Balmis, since his daughter María Luísa had suffered the illness. The expedition occurred on the Maria Pita ship and carried 22 orphan boys (8 to 10 years old) as successive carriers in vivo of the vaccine, Balmis, a deputy surgeon, 2 assistants, 2 first-aid practitioners, 3 male nurses and the rectoress of a Santiago de Compostela orphanage2.

The course
The mission took the vaccine to the Canary Islands, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, the Philippines and China3. The ship carried also scientific instruments and translations of the Historical and Practical Treatise on the Vaccine by Moreau de Sarthe to be distributed to the local vaccine commissions to be founded.

Puerto Rico
The local population was already inoculated with a vaccine carried from the Danish colony Saint Thomas.

Venezuela
The expedition divided at La Guayra.
 * José Salvany, the deputy surgeon, went towards today's Colombia and the Viceroyalty of Peru (Venezuela, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Bolivia). They took seven years and the toils of the voyage brought death to Salvany (Cochabamba, 1810).
 * Balmis went to Caracas and later to Havana. The local poet Andrés Bello wrote an ode to Balmis.

Mexico (1805)
In Mexico, Balmis took 25 orphans to maintain the vaccine during the crossing of the Pacific.

Philippines
They received help from the church. Balmis dismissed back to Mexico the gross of the expedition and went further to China.

China
Balmis landed on Macau and went also to Canton.

Return
On his way back to Spain, Balmis convinced the authorities of Saint Helena (1806) to take the vaccine.

The discoverer of the vaccine Edward Jenner himself wrote "I don’t imagine the annals of history furnish an example of philanthropy so noble, so extensive as this.”

Fictional Accounts
Julia Alvarez wrote a fictional account of the expedition from the perspective of its only female member in Saving the World.