Bulletin of the history of medicine
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Historical Article
European cloth and "tropical" skin: clothing material and British ideas of health and hygiene in tropical climates.
As Britain's imperial and colonial ambitions intensified toward the end of the nineteenth century, the preservation of white European health in tropical climates became an increasingly important concern. Since at least the seventeenth century, the "tropics" had been seen as spaces holding vast potential wealth but also death and disease. To combat these deadly but desirable landscapes, the British built a considerable commodity culture around the preservation of white European health, and for many, tropical clothing was one of the most important and essential items in their "kits." This article investigates the composition and use of such clothing in relation to British ideas of health and hygiene in tropical climates. ⋯ Finally, it considers the relationship of tropical clothing to the formation of a unique colonial identity. To British men and women embarking for any number of tropical destinations, proper clothing was not a banal and mundane component of their outfitting. For many, the clothing signified a departure from the safe and "civil" climes of Britain for adventure in the expanding tropical empire.
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Historical Article
Catching cowpox: the early spread of smallpox vaccination, 1798-1810.
The introduction of smallpox vaccination after the publication of Edward Jenner's An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of Variolae Vaccinae depended on the spread of cowpox, a relatively rare disease. How Europeans and their colonial allies transported and maintained cowpox in new environments is a social and technological story involving a broad range of individuals from physicians and surgeons to philanthropists, ministers, and colonial administrators. Putting cowpox in new places also meant developing new techniques and organizations. This essay focuses on the actual practices of vaccination and their environmental contexts in order to illuminate the dynamic exchanges of materials, images, and ideas that made the spread of vaccination possible.
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Historical Article
The world's first immunization campaign: the Spanish Smallpox Vaccine Expedition, 1803-1813.
Smallpox produced the death of up to thirty percent of those infected, so Jenner's preventive method spread quickly. The Spanish government designed and supported a ten-year effort to carry smallpox vaccine to its American and Asian territories in a chain of arm-to-arm vaccination of children. ⋯ Vice-director José Salvany and his staff took vaccine to present-day Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chilean Patagonia. The Spanish Royal Philanthropic Vaccine Expedition shows the first attempts to solve questions still important for the introduction of new immunizations--professionalization in public health, technology transfer, protection of research subjects, and evaluation of vaccine efficacy, safety, and cost.