Michael Bennett: From prohibition to rapid global rollout — Spain’s smallpox vaccination response in the 19th century

The 2024 Dr Ben Haneman Memorial Lecture is presented by the State Library of NSW Foundation and the Australian and New Zealand Society of the History of Medicine

Smallpox was endemic in Spain in the 18th century and epidemics regularly broke out in its overseas empire. And yet Spain prohibited the smallpox inoculation procedure used elsewhere in Western Europe at the time. But when Edward Jenner discovered the cowpox inoculation (vaccination) against smallpox in the late 1790s, Spain quickly trialled and rolled out this new, effective vaccine across the country. Then in 1803 it launched an expedition that took the vaccine around the world, with hundreds of thousands of people vaccinated across an empire stretching from Mexico to Macao.

Michael Bennett will explore this remarkable medical and logistical undertaking, and discuss why and how a country previously resistant to reform and innovation achieved it.

Michael Bennett is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Tasmania and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities. He is the author of five books and many papers on British, European and world history, including most recently War against Smallpox: Edward Jenner and the global spread of vaccination (2020), shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s History Awards in 2021. One of his current projects relates to the history of the idea of contagion.

Refreshments will be served.