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IMMUNIZATIONS

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cines for San Antonio de Bexar . However, a cow with visible signs it can be speculated that standards of healthcare practice in San An-
of cowpox may have not been readily available or too few in number tonio today began in part due to the early adoption of the smallpox
to vaccinate all citizens. Therefore, it is possible that “retrovaccina- vaccine. In a time where some modern Bexar residents may question
tion” may have also been utilized by Bexareños to make vaccines. De- the utility of vaccination, it was clear that early San Antonians rec-
veloped in 1803 by Gennaro Galbiati and Michele Troja in Naples, ognized the importance of this life-saving technology, embraced it
this method involved infecting a healthy cow with lymph from a re- in its infancy, and set the precedent for cutting-edge medicine still
cently cowpox-inoculated human. Lymph was then harvested from being practiced in the city today.
the newly infected cow which supposedly functioned as an even more
effective vaccine for human use . Jacob Canfield is a second-year medical student at the UT -LSOM in
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Regardless of the specific method employed, Bexareños were so San Antonio.
successful at creating smallpox vaccines that shipments were sent
to Nacogdoches from San Antonio when they began to experience References
a smallpox epidemic of their own. Evidence for the efficacy of 1. De la Teja, J., & Wheat, J. (1985). Bexar: Profile of a Tejano
these vaccines is scant, but Alcalde Manuel de los Santos Coy, early Community, 1820-1832. The Southwestern Historical
settler and politician of Nacogdoches, wrote in 1831 that “I have Quarterly,89(1), 7-34.
never seen more milder cases of smallpox than those of this epoch, 2. Nixon, Pat. (1946). The medical story of early Texas 1528-1853.
Mollie Bennett Lupe Memorial Fund. Lancaster Pa. 133-136.
only two have died from it” . Furthermore, it seems the successful
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3. Montes, Luis. (2018). Spain, A Global History. Global Square
development and implementation of vaccines during the smallpox
Editorial S.l. 362.
outbreaks of the early 1830s laid the groundwork for effective med-
4. Buonaguro, F. M., Tornesello, M. L., & Buonaguro, L. (2015).
ical infrastructure in San Antonio de Bexar.
The XIX century smallpox prevention in Naples and the risk of
Only months after the epidemic of 1831, Bexar's first community transmission of human blood-related pathogens. Journal of
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health commission (“Junta de Sanidad”) was established . Therefore, translational medicine, 13, 33.

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