Abstract

VANEGAS, Esteban. Comment on the article “With regard to the bicentennial of the independence of Colombia: Reading practices of Antonio Nariño and the development of a presumably effective vaccine against smallpox”. Biomed. [online]. 2021, vol.41, suppl.2, pp.29-36.  Epub Oct 15, 2021. ISSN 0120-4157.  https://doi.org/10.7705/biomedica.5723.

For the American colonies, smallpox implied a process that dramatically destabilized their sociodemographic dynamics, which explains why scientific development took place around the causative virus. Each book about smallpox in Nariño’s library was a tool in the fight against smallpox undertaken by the founding father. After reviewing the article “About the bicentennial of the independence of Colombia: The reading practices of Antonio Nariño and the development of a vaccine that is presumably effective against smallpox”1, I set myself to study Antonio Nariño’s medical knowledge further. Through the approach to the works that Nariño used to educate himself on smallpox and the development of a biographical sketch of each of them, I analyzed the process of variolization in the Kingdom of Nueva Granada and the need to manufacture a vaccine locally.

Keywords : Smallpox; variola virus; smallpox vaccine; immunization; Vaccinia virus; epidemics.

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