Smallpox vaccine Female Factory - vaccine volunteers? Smallpox vaccination was an important health protection measure in the colony. As early as 1803, just a few years after Edward Jenner published his research about using cowpox to protect against smallpox, children in the colony, initially the orphans, were being vaccinated by Mr John Savage, Assistant Surgeon of the Colony.
Keeping the vaccine alive….
Sydney Gazette & NSW Advertiser, 15th May 1803
To keep smallpox vaccine ‘alive’ doctors had to ensure there was always someone who was inoculated and had a lesion active so fresh vaccine could be harvested. The Female Factory in Parramatta, where hundreds of women were housed, was the answer. In 1841, Deputy Inspector General of Hospitals Dr J.V. Thomson informed Governor George Gipps that the Female Factory at Parramatta was ‘.. the only Convict Establishment in which...there exists a sufficient field to keep it up.”
Smallpox vaccine lesion. Image from Jenner E. An inquiry into the causes and effects of the variolæ vaccine. 1798
Caring for the Incarcerated Exhibition Guide
- the only place where there were enough unvaccinated people to keep the vaccine alive through arm to arm transfer of live viral material, thus ensuring continuous supply of vaccine.
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