13. Vaccinations

Oct 14, 2004

The first to be innoculated against common diseases were Prince Chudamani’s daughters, but as smallpox continued its murderous spread, killing hundreds of people – with 1839 the worst year on record – King Rama III let Bradley vaccinate the ladies in his court, followed by all of his subjects.

According to Bradley’s book, “Siam Then”, the monarch paid him Bt20 (at that time worth approximately US$12, or Bt497 today) to purchase the vaccine for the poor.

Bradley’s 1840 “Tamra Plook Phee Kho” (Treatise on Vaccination), written as a guide for Siamese doctors, was much appreciated by the King, who paid him Bt240.

Bradley gradually revised the book and published 300 copies for sale to the public in 1844. Vaccine, however, was not always readily available in sufficient quantities – Bradley’s own eight-month-old daughter died from smallpox a year later. But the good doctor from the US had again proven his value to the people of Siam.

In “Siam Then”, Bradley wrote that, at first, he’d used an old method of inoculation, injecting people with a mild form of smallpox, but met with little success. He preferred proper vaccine, but didn’t have a chance to try it here until a friend in Washington, Dr SVC Smith, sent him some on January 22, 1840. Among his first patients were the children of such high personages as Chao Phraya Phra Klang and Prince Chudamani, as well as Prince Mongkut’s officials.

Vaccination using cowpox to build immunity against the deadly scourge of smallpox was discovered in theory by British army surgeon Edward Jenner in 1798.

Siam ordered vaccine from abroad until 1901, when King Rama V authorised the Ministry of Public Instruction to establish a Pasteur Institute here, in order to produce vaccine locally for the first time.

Nithinand Yorsaengrat

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