Un médico rural contra la viruela, la epidemia de 1891-92 en Huércanos (Logroño)

Abstract

Irregular smallpox vaccination during the 19th century led to the emergence of several epidemic waves in Spain. The low acceptance of the vaccine by the population, coupled with the inability of the state to organize and provide vaccine campaigns, helped to perpetuate the disease. During the second half of the century, there was a debate on the need for compulsory vaccination and revaccination, and also on the use of the animal vaccine. A text by Emilio Casas Arriola, a physician in the little village of Huércanos (Logroño, Spain), shows the outbreak occurred between 1891 and 1892 in this area. The work is structured as a medical topography and was written with the intention of obtaining a prize from the Royal Medical Academy of Madrid. It analyzes the difficulties, hardships and measures taken to address the epidemic in an isolated rural environment.