The Balmis Expedition: The Spanish Empire's War against Smallpox

While the Spanish are often remembered for bringing smallpox and other diseases to the New World, little attention is paid to their efforts to eradicate one of the greatest killers in human history. In the middle of the Napoleonic Wars, King Charles IV funded and dispatched a humanitarian mission aimed at inoculating all of the imperial colonies in Latin America and Asia. Known as the Balmis Expedition, it was launched in 1803 and utilized Edward Jenner’s new method by which to vaccinate pe...