A Coruña, 30 November 1803. Based on the Royal Philanthropic Vaccine Expedition.
The Tower of Hercules was slipping further and further behind, smaller and smaller, as the corvette María Pita headed out into the Atlantic. It was 30 November 1803, and Isabel Zendal, sitting on deck, had her arms around the two youngest children to shield them from the wind.
Isabel was the director of the foundling home in A Coruña. On board were twenty-two orphans aged between three and nine; one of them was her own son, Benito. None of them had had smallpox, a disease that killed thousands of people every year on both sides of the ocean.
A few years earlier, the English doctor Edward Jenner had discovered that anyone who caught cowpox, which was far milder, was protected against the human disease. That’s where the word “vaccine” came from, from the Latin for cow. The doctor Francisco Javier Balmis, head of the expedition, wanted to take that remedy to Spain’s territories in the Americas. The problem was the journey: outside the body, the vaccine fluid went off within a few days, and the crossing would take weeks.
Balmis’s solution was as simple as it was risky. Before setting sail, they vaccinated two children. After nine or ten days, small blisters would appear on their arms; fluid would be taken from them to vaccinate another two, and so on, from arm to arm, all the way to the Americas. Always two at a time: if it didn’t take in one, there was still the other.
Isabel’s job was to make sure nothing broke that chain. She watched for fevers, changed bandages and kept the vaccinated children apart from the others, so that nobody would catch it before their turn.
In the hold there were also boxes of books: printed handbooks to teach the doctors in the Americas to vaccinate by themselves. The first stop would be the Canary Islands. Isabel looked at the little boy asleep with his arm bandaged and counted the days left until the next pair.
Activities
1 Detective Inference
During the crossing, where was the vaccine really kept? Tick the correct hypothesis.
- a) In tightly sealed glass jars, stored in the hold.
- ✓b) In the children’s arms, passed on two at a time.
- c) In cows travelling in the ship’s hold.
- d) In the printed handbooks, which explained how to make it on arrival.
Why did it have to be that way? Copy or summarise the clue from the text that proves it.
Correct hypothesis: b). Exactly: the children were the “chain” that kept the vaccine alive.
Key clue: “Outside the body the fluid went off within a few days, and the crossing took weeks: it had to be kept alive in people.” That’s the reason: the problem was time, and the solution was a living container.
2 The Loom Order of events
Put the events of the expedition in time order. Write the order number (1, 2, 3…) in each box.
- 1 Jenner discovers that cowpox protects against human smallpox.
- 5 That fluid is used to vaccinate the second pair.
- 2 The first two children are vaccinated.
- 4 Blisters appear on the first two children’s arms.
- 3 The María Pita leaves the Tower of Hercules behind.
Correct order:
- Jenner discovers that cowpox protects against human smallpox.
- The first two children are vaccinated.
- The María Pita leaves the Tower of Hercules behind.
- Blisters appear on the first two children’s arms.
- That fluid is used to vaccinate the second pair.
First, Jenner’s discovery (years before). The first pair is vaccinated before setting sail; the blisters appear after nine or ten days, out at sea, and only then can the next pair be vaccinated.
3 The Missing Page Coherence
Which continuation fits the expedition’s plan? Tick only one option.
- ✓a) In the Americas, the vaccine keeps passing from arm to arm with local children, and local doctors learn to vaccinate using the handbooks.
- b) In the Canary Islands they vaccinate the remaining twenty children all at once, to save time.
- c) On arrival, they store the vaccine in jars, and it keeps for years.
- d) To keep the chain going, they take fluid from people sick with human smallpox.
Answer: a). It’s the logical continuation: the living chain is the only way to keep the vaccine, and the handbooks were for teaching.
- b) That would break the chain: after nine or ten days, there would be no unvaccinated child left to keep taking fluid from.
- c) It contradicts the problem the text sets out: outside the body, the fluid went off within a few days.
- d) The vaccine works precisely because it comes from cowpox, which is much milder.
4 Spot the Contradiction Literal reading
Three of these statements don’t fit the story. Put an X next to the 3 statements that don’t fit the text.
- a) The expedition left A Coruña at the end of 1803.On 30 November 1803.
- ✗b) Isabel Zendal led the expedition.Francisco Javier Balmis led it; Isabel looked after the children.
- ✗c) All the children were vaccinated on the first day.They were vaccinated two at a time, every nine or ten days.
- d) The word “vaccine” has to do with cows.It comes from cowpox.
- e) One of the children was Isabel’s son.Her son Benito travelled with them.
- ✗f) Outside the body, the vaccine fluid lasted weeks without going off.The opposite: it went off within a few days. That’s why it had to be carried in the children’s arms.
5 The Gallery Visualisation
In the game you choose the illustration that answers this question: “Which illustration shows the scene the story begins with?”. Here, you draw it yourself, with every detail the text gives you.
What should appear: Isabel sitting on deck with her arms around two children, and the Tower of Hercules falling behind.
Reward drawings that include the details from the text, not artistic skill.
Ending
To read aloud once the answers have been checked.
The María Pita reached the Canary Islands in December and, in February 1804, Puerto Rico. The chain didn’t break: the vaccine crossed the Atlantic alive, from arm to arm.
In the Americas, the expedition split up to reach further, and local children joined the chain. Wherever they went, vaccine boards were set up and the method was taught to local doctors, using the handbooks that had travelled in the hold. Balmis went on to cross the Pacific as far as the Philippines and China.
Isabel Zendal never returned to Spain: she stayed in Mexico with her son. Today she is remembered as a pioneer of nursing in international health missions.
Suggested marking
Each activity is worth 2 points (10 in total). In 1, one point for the hypothesis and one for the clue. In 2, give one point if only a couple of events are swapped. In 4, half a point for each correct cross and minus half a point for each true statement crossed out.