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IMMUNIZATIONS

The Story of

San Antonio’s

First Vaccines

By Jacob Canfield

he San Antonio we are fortunate to live in today, with some y Tejas”, made vaccination compulsory in San Antonio de Bexar
exceptions, is largely free from the numerous infectious declaring that “everyone without exception was required to report
diseases that plagued the city when it was first founded. to the municipal building where the operation will be performed
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Yellow fever, influenza, cholera, and smallpox all terrorized San An- free of charge” . Furthermore, Músquiz, made clear to local admin-
tonio at some point in its 300-year history. Smallpox, for instance, istrators that “whenever the vaccine fluid is lost through your indo-
consistently claimed lives in the community until vaccinations began lence, apathy, or carelessness, this office will make use of its legal
to be utilized in the early 19th century. Although many San Antonio power to apply to Your Lordship whatever punishment may be due
residents nowadays may recognize vaccination as standard medical in proportion to the gravity of the harm that may result to humanity
practice, this was not always the case. Only two centuries ago, the from such neglect” .
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practice of vaccination was in its infancy. The citizens of San An- The importance the Mexican government placed on vaccination
tonio were some of the first people in the Americas to utilize, de- stemmed from Spain’s early embrace of the vaccine. In fact, Spain
velop, and distribute vaccines only a few years after they had been endorsed an unprecedented expedition led by Dr. Francisco Javier
proposed by Jenner in 1796. de Balmis in 1803 with the aim of vaccinating millions against small-
Known as “San Antonio de Bexar” or simply “Bexar” at the time, pox in the New World and Asia. Although not quite accomplishing
the area of modern-day San Antonio in the early 19th century was this aim, the expedition did help establish the practice of vaccination
an agglomeration of three distinct communities consisting of the throughout the Americas. Regarding Balmis expedition, Jenner him-
Franciscan missions, the military presidio of San Antonio, and the self wrote: “I don't imagine the annals of history furnish an exam-
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civil settlement of San Fernando de Bexar. Although these commu- ple of philanthropy so noble, so extensive as this” .
nities inevitably collaborated and integrated with each other, they Despite the Mexican government’s attempt to adequately supply
were independent entities and often had incompatible interests. De- Texas communities with vaccines, shipments were slow, never arrived,
spite their differences, they shared the common struggles that were or if they did, were often spoiled and unfit for use. However, the in-
a part of living on the frontier of New Spain and later Mexico after genuity of the proudly independent Bexareños of San Antonio would
its independence in 1821. Being on the frontier meant these find their own solutions to supply shortages. In 1831, after a smallpox
Bexareños (the period term for residents of San Antonio de Bexar) epidemic sweeping through Texas finally hit Bexar, the townsfolk de-
lived in geographic, economic, and social isolation. This isolation veloped their own formulation of the smallpox vaccine from an in-
made Bexareños fiercely independent, but unfortunately did not fected cow udder . Without medical experts present, it was up to the
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make them immune to epidemics. citizens of Bexar to create this vaccine based solely on written in-
For most of the early 1800s, no hospital and few, if any, qualified structions. Although the historical account does not disclose the
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doctors existed in the Bexar area . This lack of medical infrastruc- specifics of these instructions, it can be speculated it was accom-
ture forced Bexareños to rely on their national government for med- plished through one of two popular methods of vaccination available
ical aid. During the 1820s, the Mexican government attempted to at the time. The first, and most likely, involved harvesting cowpox
provide smallpox vaccine shipments to communities throughout virus (a member of the genus Orthopoxvirus) from the pustules on
Texas whenever epidemics arose. In fact, the importance of vacci- an infected cow and using that extract to directly vaccinate human in-
nation was emphasized by government officials to a strict degree. dividuals. In fact, Spanish governor Antonio Martinez a decade earlier
On February 21st, 1830, Ramón Músquiz, governor of “Coahuila in 1820 urged the utilization of this method in order to develop vac-

22 San Antonio Medicine • November 2019