February 12, 2021 • 10 mins
Tracy and Holly talk about Spain's effort to spread the smallpox vaccine, and how Balmis handled things. They also discuss fear about vaccines, bodily autonomy, and what does and doesn't gross them out.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy
view Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. This week we spent
two episodes talking about the Royal Philanthropic Vaccine Expedition, not
(00:22):
the Royal Phillermonic Vaccine EXTPEDITIONE, which is how my brain
kept wanting to read it. Yes, and as as we
discussed in the studio, but hopefully none of it made
in its way into the actual recording. UM. Large number
of times while typing the episode into a script, I
typed the words smallpox when I meant cow pox, and
(00:45):
those are not the same thing at all, No, but
it is. It's so tricky when you're working on something
like this where you have the similar words, where it's
just like you gotta be constantly focused on it or
you will miss one. It's almost impossible not to. Yeah. Um.
One of the things that I didn't really get into
(01:07):
in the show is that there are a lot of
like pretty brief treatments, you know, short articles of this
whole expedition that exists around and a lot of them
take this very heroic approach like this was Spain's heroic effort,
which I mean, and there are definitely elements of it
that you could describe as heroic, um, but they don't
(01:28):
really touch on the fact that Bombas really seems to
have been kind of a jerk and a lot of contexts.
And I when I was working on the part about
there getting to Puerto Rico and the vaccine is already
there and he got so mad about it and had
this sort of campaign against the existing vaccine program, I
kind of imagine him just kept stomping his feet and
(01:50):
being like, but I wanted to do it, Like right.
He comes off to me as such a cudgel of
a man. Right, And you see why he have been
chosen to do this, because he clearly was a person
with a bias for action, and that had led to
his success and recognition of his abilities. But that also
meant that he was not well suited for the sensitivity
(02:12):
that they had been encouraged to exhibit when they were
dealing with a lot of these communities. He kind of
needed like a partner in the mix who would have
been good at the human relations part while he was
good at the administrative part. Yeah. Yeah, Um. One of
the things that that it reminded me of like number one.
(02:34):
As I was working on it, I was like, wow,
this is such a logistical tangle to try to get
this fragile vaccine to all of these different places. Um.
And you know, if you were just sending some vaccine,
you were shipping it in the mail, and it arrived
and didn't work, you could ask again. But if you
were trying to send an expedition of people whose entire
(02:57):
purpose was to create this massive vaccine program more than
a continent, uh, and they got there in their vaccine
did not work, then I would be ruined right Like.
It was a huge logistical thing, And I kept thinking like, man,
this is like it it's beyond the idea that we're
gonna need to send COVID vaccine with help from dipping dots,
(03:17):
which was like a a news article from slightly earlier
in the current pandemic that we are all dealing with.
So I kept thinking about, like the parallels between just
the logistical hurdles that are happening with the current vaccine
presently and the logistical hurdles that existed in introducing the
smallpox vaccine to the world, and the other parallel that
(03:40):
I saw was like the the same sort of attitude
about people who were having hesitancy about vaccines and people
taking this approach that's like, well, if you're scared, you
are clearly ignorant, and I'm just gonna talk to you
like you're an ignorant, stupid person and be really in
so thing, and I'm just gonna say that does not work.
(04:03):
You are not going to convince a scared person to
get a vaccine or to vaccinate their children by yelling
at them and calling them names. Right, we know psychologically
that is the worst way to convince somebody of something,
So don't don't do that. Why we have talked about
the podcast Saw Bones on the show before hosted by
(04:26):
Sydney McElroy who is a doctor and her husband Justin McElroy,
who is not a doctor um and they did an
episode about how to talk to people about vaccine hesitancy
really recently, and one of the things they talked about
was basically, you're not You're not going to change people's
minds by yelling at them. A lot of a lot
of the hesitancy is coming from fear, and some of
(04:49):
the fears like there is some element of justification to
being scared about a thing that's gonna, you know, affect
your life well. And like the combination of fear and
then shame is deadly. It will shut somebody down completely.
So yeah, that's not cool. So yeah, Um, the COVID
(05:12):
vaccine is definitely far safer than vaccinating somebody with an
arm to arms smallpox chain carry across the ocean. I know,
I am eagerly awaiting the day they get to general
population COVID vaccine availability here in Massachusetts, and I will
(05:33):
be lining up to that say into my arm, I
am ready. Can I just tell you might decide that
I'm a monster in any way you didn't already know.
None of this grosses me out at all. Yeah, like
the whole Like we're gonna lance a boil from a
cow and put it in you. That does not gross
me out at all. For some reason, I have weird sensitivities.
(05:56):
I mean, as everybody does. I'm not a unique, you know,
snowflake in this regard. Um, everyone has those weird pockets
that they will get grossed out by. But like, I
don't know, for some reason, this is just not one
for me. I'm like, yeah, I get it. I totally
understand it. That's not that gross, right, Yeah, I didn't.
I didn't really feel grossed out by it while working
on it or talking about it. Um, there have for sure,
(06:19):
but things we've talked about on the show before where
I was like, that's the grossest thing I've ever heard
in my life. But the only thing that did gross
me out while working on this episode was I pulled
up something at one point that just had a bunch
of very high resolution pictures of cowpox stores, and I
was like, I didn't need to see that. It's not
(06:39):
so great. Yeah, reading and talking about it not as
big of a deal. I'm I'm more grossed out by
the treatment of some people in this episode. Yeah, Um,
the enslavement of children and the forced inoculation of enslaved
people and all of that is a little more gross
(07:00):
to me than the idea of PUS apparently. Yeah. Well,
and it's it's there was just a lot. Uh. We
we only mentioned that it was not it was kind
of outside the scope of this episode. But um, the
whole idea that Thomas Jefferson was like, I'm going to
use this vaccine as a diplomatic tool when working with
indigenous communities who had been devastated by the illness that
(07:26):
we introduced. It's yeah, and then um, I mean there's
been some historical debate about whether whether smallpox really was
used as a bioweapon by giving people contaminated blankets. Like
there's been right back and forth about that idea over
the years. Just a whole complicated thing. Um. And it's like,
(07:49):
on the one hand, you can you can only eradicate
a disease if if enough people are vaccinated against it.
And when it came to eradicating smallpox, I think we've
talked about this in the earlier smallpox episode, but not
until this one, Like it took really really careful management.
And if somebody developed smallpox, they would kind of make
(08:10):
a ring around that person with vaccine and like vaccine,
vaccinate all the people who were going to be in
close contact with them. Um. And if somebody said no,
like that had the potential to to make the whole
process of trying to eradicate it go on longer if
that if that went on, So it's like a whole
complicated thing of like the human interest aspect of meeting
(08:31):
everyone to be vaccinated in order to stop the progression
of disease, but also people having bodily autonomy about what
they want to do with their bodies. I had a
lot of I don't know, thinking and soul searching about
all of these things while working on this episodes. I
am very glad that medical technology has progressed to the
point that we don't need arm to arm, chains of
(08:54):
children to transport for sure. Yeah, yes, also glad. But
we have so many different COVID vaccines that are being
you know, demonstrated is pretty effective. Yeah, it's exciting. I
(09:15):
mean the science behind that is to my mind really cool,
and so there's like a whole other element to it
where it's like, no, it's not like previous vaccines where
you're getting dormant virus. It's attacking the whole structure of
it instead, and that to me is just like super
hart cool. Yeah, pretending the pandemic did not exist, I
(09:35):
would just be fascinated by the science of it. Um,
the pandemic existing makes it all feel a little more urgent.
But urgent is exactly the word I was thinking of. Yeah,
if you want to know more about like the vaccines
and how they were developed and how they worked and
all of that again. The podcast saw Bones as a
medical history podcast and you will have explanations from an
(09:56):
actual doctor, which we are not no so anyway, Happy
Friday again to everyone. I hope everybody has a great
weekend and if you want to send us a note,
go for it. Where History podcast i heart radio dot com.
(10:17):
Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy
view Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. This week we spent
two episodes talking about the Royal Philanthropic Vaccine Expedition, not
(00:22):
the Royal Phillermonic Vaccine EXTPEDITIONE, which is how my brain
kept wanting to read it. Yes, and as as we
discussed in the studio, but hopefully none of it made
in its way into the actual recording. UM. Large number
of times while typing the episode into a script, I
typed the words smallpox when I meant cow pox, and
(00:45):
those are not the same thing at all, No, but
it is. It's so tricky when you're working on something
like this where you have the similar words, where it's
just like you gotta be constantly focused on it or
you will miss one. It's almost impossible not to. Yeah. Um.
One of the things that I didn't really get into
(01:07):
in the show is that there are a lot of
like pretty brief treatments, you know, short articles of this
whole expedition that exists around and a lot of them
take this very heroic approach like this was Spain's heroic effort,
which I mean, and there are definitely elements of it
that you could describe as heroic, um, but they don't
(01:28):
really touch on the fact that Bombas really seems to
have been kind of a jerk and a lot of contexts.
And I when I was working on the part about
there getting to Puerto Rico and the vaccine is already
there and he got so mad about it and had
this sort of campaign against the existing vaccine program, I
kind of imagine him just kept stomping his feet and
(01:50):
being like, but I wanted to do it, Like right.
He comes off to me as such a cudgel of
a man. Right, And you see why he have been
chosen to do this, because he clearly was a person
with a bias for action, and that had led to
his success and recognition of his abilities. But that also
meant that he was not well suited for the sensitivity
(02:12):
that they had been encouraged to exhibit when they were
dealing with a lot of these communities. He kind of
needed like a partner in the mix who would have
been good at the human relations part while he was
good at the administrative part. Yeah. Yeah, Um. One of
the things that that it reminded me of like number one.
(02:34):
As I was working on it, I was like, wow,
this is such a logistical tangle to try to get
this fragile vaccine to all of these different places. Um.
And you know, if you were just sending some vaccine,
you were shipping it in the mail, and it arrived
and didn't work, you could ask again. But if you
were trying to send an expedition of people whose entire
(02:57):
purpose was to create this massive vaccine program more than
a continent, uh, and they got there in their vaccine
did not work, then I would be ruined right Like.
It was a huge logistical thing, And I kept thinking like, man,
this is like it it's beyond the idea that we're
gonna need to send COVID vaccine with help from dipping dots,
(03:17):
which was like a a news article from slightly earlier
in the current pandemic that we are all dealing with.
So I kept thinking about, like the parallels between just
the logistical hurdles that are happening with the current vaccine
presently and the logistical hurdles that existed in introducing the
smallpox vaccine to the world, and the other parallel that
(03:40):
I saw was like the the same sort of attitude
about people who were having hesitancy about vaccines and people
taking this approach that's like, well, if you're scared, you
are clearly ignorant, and I'm just gonna talk to you
like you're an ignorant, stupid person and be really in
so thing, and I'm just gonna say that does not work.
(04:03):
You are not going to convince a scared person to
get a vaccine or to vaccinate their children by yelling
at them and calling them names. Right, we know psychologically
that is the worst way to convince somebody of something,
So don't don't do that. Why we have talked about
the podcast Saw Bones on the show before hosted by
(04:26):
Sydney McElroy who is a doctor and her husband Justin McElroy,
who is not a doctor um and they did an
episode about how to talk to people about vaccine hesitancy
really recently, and one of the things they talked about
was basically, you're not You're not going to change people's
minds by yelling at them. A lot of a lot
of the hesitancy is coming from fear, and some of
(04:49):
the fears like there is some element of justification to
being scared about a thing that's gonna, you know, affect
your life well. And like the combination of fear and
then shame is deadly. It will shut somebody down completely.
So yeah, that's not cool. So yeah, Um, the COVID
(05:12):
vaccine is definitely far safer than vaccinating somebody with an
arm to arms smallpox chain carry across the ocean. I know,
I am eagerly awaiting the day they get to general
population COVID vaccine availability here in Massachusetts, and I will
(05:33):
be lining up to that say into my arm, I
am ready. Can I just tell you might decide that
I'm a monster in any way you didn't already know.
None of this grosses me out at all. Yeah, like
the whole Like we're gonna lance a boil from a
cow and put it in you. That does not gross
me out at all. For some reason, I have weird sensitivities.
(05:56):
I mean, as everybody does. I'm not a unique, you know,
snowflake in this regard. Um, everyone has those weird pockets
that they will get grossed out by. But like, I
don't know, for some reason, this is just not one
for me. I'm like, yeah, I get it. I totally
understand it. That's not that gross, right, Yeah, I didn't.
I didn't really feel grossed out by it while working
on it or talking about it. Um, there have for sure,
(06:19):
but things we've talked about on the show before where
I was like, that's the grossest thing I've ever heard
in my life. But the only thing that did gross
me out while working on this episode was I pulled
up something at one point that just had a bunch
of very high resolution pictures of cowpox stores, and I
was like, I didn't need to see that. It's not
(06:39):
so great. Yeah, reading and talking about it not as
big of a deal. I'm I'm more grossed out by
the treatment of some people in this episode. Yeah, Um,
the enslavement of children and the forced inoculation of enslaved
people and all of that is a little more gross
(07:00):
to me than the idea of PUS apparently. Yeah. Well,
and it's it's there was just a lot. Uh. We
we only mentioned that it was not it was kind
of outside the scope of this episode. But um, the
whole idea that Thomas Jefferson was like, I'm going to
use this vaccine as a diplomatic tool when working with
indigenous communities who had been devastated by the illness that
(07:26):
we introduced. It's yeah, and then um, I mean there's
been some historical debate about whether whether smallpox really was
used as a bioweapon by giving people contaminated blankets. Like
there's been right back and forth about that idea over
the years. Just a whole complicated thing. Um. And it's like,
(07:49):
on the one hand, you can you can only eradicate
a disease if if enough people are vaccinated against it.
And when it came to eradicating smallpox, I think we've
talked about this in the earlier smallpox episode, but not
until this one, Like it took really really careful management.
And if somebody developed smallpox, they would kind of make
(08:10):
a ring around that person with vaccine and like vaccine,
vaccinate all the people who were going to be in
close contact with them. Um. And if somebody said no,
like that had the potential to to make the whole
process of trying to eradicate it go on longer if
that if that went on, So it's like a whole
complicated thing of like the human interest aspect of meeting
(08:31):
everyone to be vaccinated in order to stop the progression
of disease, but also people having bodily autonomy about what
they want to do with their bodies. I had a
lot of I don't know, thinking and soul searching about
all of these things while working on this episodes. I
am very glad that medical technology has progressed to the
point that we don't need arm to arm, chains of
(08:54):
children to transport for sure. Yeah, yes, also glad. But
we have so many different COVID vaccines that are being
you know, demonstrated is pretty effective. Yeah, it's exciting. I
(09:15):
mean the science behind that is to my mind really cool,
and so there's like a whole other element to it
where it's like, no, it's not like previous vaccines where
you're getting dormant virus. It's attacking the whole structure of
it instead, and that to me is just like super
hart cool. Yeah, pretending the pandemic did not exist, I
(09:35):
would just be fascinated by the science of it. Um,
the pandemic existing makes it all feel a little more urgent.
But urgent is exactly the word I was thinking of. Yeah,
if you want to know more about like the vaccines
and how they were developed and how they worked and
all of that again. The podcast saw Bones as a
medical history podcast and you will have explanations from an
(09:56):
actual doctor, which we are not no so anyway, Happy
Friday again to everyone. I hope everybody has a great
weekend and if you want to send us a note,
go for it. Where History podcast i heart radio dot com.
(10:17):
Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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