Balmis Expedition

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Testimonies · Year: 1803

One of the first vaccination campaigns in History took place in Santa Cruz de Tenerife; it was against smallpox and was promoted by the Spanish doctor Francisco Javier Balmis y Berenguer (1753-1819), who between 1803 and 1806 led a philanthropic expedition that travelled around the world.   

The objective was to spread the newly discovered smallpox vaccine in the Spanish overseas territories. To do this, it was necessary to face the challenge of transporting the vaccine over a great distance so that it would be in a usable condition upon arrival at its destination. Balmis devised gathering a group of twenty-two children, inoculating the virus into two, so that when these developed the attenuated form of the disease, the operation would be repeated successively. Through this chain, the fluid would arrive fresh over long distances. These human containers (called “reservoirs”), which acted like refrigerators to keep the remedy in optimal condition, were chosen from orphans from the Casa de Expósitos (foundling home) of La Coruña.  Balmis counted on the collaboration of his assistant, the surgeon Josep Salvany (who acted as deputy director of the project), an auxiliary doctor, two practitioners, three nurses and the head of the Casa de Expósitos of La Coruña, Isabel Zendal, who was in charge of caring for the children during the journey.

On 9 December 1803 the expedition arrived at the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The city then had nearly seven thousand inhabitants; it had a makeshift pier, a beautiful promenade facing the sea, a spacious meeting square, two prominent churches, some hermitages and a coastal walled enclosure that ran from the Cabo neighbourhood in the south to the Toscal in the north. Inland, Calle del Castillo barely extended beyond Calle del Norte (today Valentín Sanz), from where the road to La Laguna began.

The arrival of Balmis with his vaccine was received with great enthusiasm by the local population. On the very day of docking, four children carrying the virus disembarked and immediately went to the house of the commander general, where ten boys from the island’s leading families were vaccinated with pus extracted from their arms. The following day, the health campaign began for the rest of the population, in which Dr Viejobueno, as president of the local Vaccination Board, was responsible for keeping the vaccine fluid active, as well as instructing health personnel to continue the inoculations.  

In just over two weeks the number of vaccinated people reached eight hundred. From Las Palmas, seven children of various ages were sent. When, on 2 January 1804, they returned with the vaccine in their bodies to the port of La Luz, they were received as heroes, mounted in an open carriage and paraded through the main streets and squares of Las Palmas. From Lanzarote came five children. Upon their return to the island of the volcanoes, five others were inoculated and the next day the same operation was repeated with three more. A few days later they were taken to Teguise, then the capital of the island, where more vaccinations took place. In La Palma the population initially acted with suspicion and distrust towards this enormous health advance. Both from the pulpits and the authorities, encouragement was given to send children to Tenerife to receive the vaccine. In the end, doubts were dispelled and seven foundling children were sent. From Fuerteventura came another four, returning days later to their native island with the antidote in their bodies to spread it there.

After this successful campaign and almost a month’s stay in Santa Cruz, on 6 January 1804, Balmis and his expedition set sail from the Tenerife port bound for the Caribbean. The Canary Islands, more specifically Santa Cruz de Tenerife, as so often throughout its history, was the vanguard and testing ground for what would later happen in America and other parts of the world.

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