Article ID: CBB000932120

Smallpox and Cowpox under the Southern Cross: The Smallpox Epidemic of 1789 and the Advent of Vaccination in Colonial Australia (2009)

unapi

Bennett, Michael J. (Author)


Bulletin of the History of Medicine
Volume: 83
Pages: 37--62


Publication Date: 2009
Edition Details: Part of a special issue: Simultaneously Global and Local: Reassessing Smallpox Vaccination and Its Spread, 1789--1900
Language: English

In histories of smallpox and vaccination, little attention has been paid to their progress in the southern latitudes. In this paper, I focus on the appearance of smallpox around Sydney Cove in 1789 and the introduction of cowpox (vaccine) to New South Wales in 1804. I demonstrate the connections, historical and virological, between the two events and examine the role of variolation in the spread of smallpox and in anticipating vaccination. I argue that imported "variolous matter," perhaps obtained in Cape Town, may have been the source of infection in the catastrophic epidemic among the Aborigines in 1789. I likewise examine the means by which vaccine was brought to Australia in relation to comparable initiatives around the Indian Ocean. I assess the significance of the early history of vaccination in Australia in relation to subsequent developments and as a remarkable demonstration of the global reach of the new prophylactic.

...More
Included in

Article Bhattacharya, Sanjoy; Brimnes, Niels (2009) Introduction: Simultaneously Global and Local: Reassessing Smallpox Vaccination and Its Spread, 1789--1900. Bulletin of the History of Medicine (p. 1). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000932120/

Similar Citations

Article Rusnock, Andrea; (2009)
Catching Cowpox: The Early Spread of Smallpox Vaccination, 1798--1810 (/isis/citation/CBB000932119/)

Article Mark, Catherine; Rigau-Pérez, José G.; (2009)
The World's First Immunization Campaign: The Spanish Smallpox Vaccine Expedition, 1803--1813 (/isis/citation/CBB000932121/)

Book Willrich, Michael; (2011)
Pox: An American History (/isis/citation/CBB001212485/)

Article Oliveira, Eliézer Cardoso de; (2013)
A epidemia de varíola e o medo da vacina em Goiás (/isis/citation/CBB001420672/)

Article Bastos, Cristiana; (2009)
Borrowing, Adapting, and Learning the Practices of Smallpox: Notes from Colonial Goa (/isis/citation/CBB000932124/)

Article Karel Černý; (2023)
Physicians or Immigrants? The Earliest Smallpox Inoculation in Europe (/isis/citation/CBB677092194/)

Book Jones, Greta; Malcolm, Elizabeth; (1999)
Medicine, disease, and the State in Ireland, 1650-1940 (/isis/citation/CBB000110599/)

Article Bhattacharya, Sanjoy; Brimnes, Niels; (2009)
Introduction: Simultaneously Global and Local: Reassessing Smallpox Vaccination and Its Spread, 1789--1900 (/isis/citation/CBB000932118/)

Book Fenn, Elizabeth A.; (2001)
Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775--82 (/isis/citation/CBB000101907/)

Thesis Lopez Denis, Adrian; (2007)
Disease and Society in Colonial Cuba, 1790--1840 (/isis/citation/CBB001561294/)

Book Rénald Lessard; (2012)
Au temps de la petite vérole: La médecine au Canada aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (/isis/citation/CBB556623917/)

Article Palmer, Steven; Hochman, Gilberto; Arbex, Danieli; (2010)
Smallpox Eradication, Laboratory Visits, and a Touch of Tourism: Travel Notes of a Canadian Scientist in Brazil (/isis/citation/CBB001420472/)

Article Junaidi; (2023)
Smallpox vaccination in Nias Island, Indonesia, 1854-1915 (/isis/citation/CBB724936721/)

Book Naono, Atsuko; (2009)
State of Vaccination: The Fight against Smallpox in Colonial Burma (/isis/citation/CBB001230352/)

Article Naono, Atsuko; (2010)
Inoculators, the Indigenous Obstacle to Vaccination in Colonial Burma (/isis/citation/CBB001231826/)

Book Jannetta, Ann; (2007)
The Vaccinators: Smallpox, Medical Knowledge, and the “Opening” of Japan (/isis/citation/CBB000741900/)

Authors & Contributors
Naono, Atsuko
Jannetta, Ann Bowman
Junaidi
Willrich, Michael
Rusnock, Andrea
Rigau-Pérez, José Gabriel
Concepts
Smallpox
Disease and diseases
Medicine
Vaccines; vaccination
Public health
Epidemics
Time Periods
19th century
18th century
20th century, early
20th century
17th century
Meiji period (Japan, 1868-1910)
Places
Canada
Myanmar (Burma)
United States
Japan
India
Brazil
Institutions
World Health Organization (WHO)
Catholic University of Ireland (Dublin)
Royal Belfast Academical Institution
Hudson's Bay Company
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment