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….

To keep smallpox vaccine ‘alive’ doctors had to ensure there

Sydney Gazette & NSW Advertiser, 15 th May 1803

was always someone who was inoculated and had a lesion active so fresh vaccine could be harvested.

Smallpox vaccine lesion. Image from Jenner E. An inquiry into the causes and effects of the variolæ vaccine. 1798

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 k eep it up.”

- the only place where there were enough unvaccinated people to kee p the vaccine alive through arm to arm transfer of live viral material, thus ensuring continuous supply of vaccine.