"Not in my skin": Controversies on smallpox and smallpox vaccination in late 19th century Buenos Aires (1880-1900)

MARTÍNEZ KLEIN, MARÍA DE LA PAZ; OVIEDO, NOELIA SOLEDAD; BORTZ, GABRIELA; BORTZ, JAIME ELÍAS

Padua

Congreso; 43rd Congress of the International Society for the History of Medicine; 2012

International Society for the History of Medicine

Smallpox was a disease that deepened the gap that divided the elite and workers in Argentina in the late 19th century. The population experienced not only an intense fear and rejection of the disease, but also to prophylactic measures such as vaccination. But was this rejection homogeneous? How did the different social groups signify smallpox and anti-smallpox vaccination? How were the prophylactic measures undertaken in spite of this rejection? What roles did physicians play in this discussion? This paper explores how different social groups attributed to smallpox and vaccination different meanings. On the one hand, the economic and intellectual elite regarded smallpox as a disease of the poor, and blamed them for their presence and permanence in the country. They sustained the idea that vaccination should be imposed only on the working class and not on the wealthiest classes. On the other hand, lower social strata refused to undergo vaccination, mistrusting the procedure since it was synthesized, distributed and administered by elite members. The physicians who joined the movement of the hygienists took for themselves the task of convincing the different groups to accept anti-smallpox vaccination. In this process, they dealt with prejudices relative to the disease and the vaccine, and with the influence on lower classes of popular healers, who were opposed to the procedure. This paper aims to analyze how different social groups signified smallpox and anti-smallpox vaccination, the resources available for disease prevention and the measures taken by the Argentinean government to control and eradicate the disease.