ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Early Vaccination Networks Across Europe: Insights from a Spanish Physician’s Papers (1800-1802)

• In Event: Public Health and Governance in the 19th and Early 20th Century

English Abstract

In recent decades, medical historiography has shifted focus toward understanding disease and patients as historical subjects (Porter, 2003; Lindemann, 2001). This perspective opens new research avenues and invites reconsideration of canonical medical figures: healthcare professionals themselves.
This presentation focuses on Ignacio María Ruiz de Luzuriaga (1763-1822), a Basque physician trained under the Real Sociedad Bascongada de los Amigos del País, with a strong international orientation. He studied in Britain, establishing contacts in London, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, where university archives preserve several letters with chemist and physician Joseph Black (1728-1799). He was also a leading promoter of Jennerian vaccination in Spain, introducing foreign texts and practical means for the new procedure (Usandizaga, 1964; Duro-Torrijos, 2014; Tuells, 2015).
From his unpublished personal archive, we present the Papeles sobre la vacuna (1800-1802), three volumes of letters and the draft of the Informe imparcial sobre la vacuna, which gather the latest knowledge of the time. These documents not only record early vaccination practices, including the use of the smallpox inoculation, but also illustrate a broader “vaccination culture” aligned with Enlightenment ideals. They reveal a vibrant, polycentric Enlightenment extending beyond major cultural centers, showing active scientific networks and intellectual exchanges in provincial Spain, thus connecting local medical innovation to the wider Republic of Letters (Astigarraga, 2003; Roberson, 2005; 2007).

Author

• Jon Mata Gainzarain, UPV/EHU (University of the Basque Country)