Acceptance and rejection: the first inoculation and vaccination campaigns in Thailand

Abstract

By the beginning of the nineteenth century the Thais already had hundreds of years experience with the smallpox virus. La Loubère, who visited Ayutthaya in 1687-8, describes it as the worst of Siam's contagious diseases, and he was also 'exceedingly' surprised to learn that the Thais waited three years before burning the corpses of those who had died of it, because they had 'experimented, that this Contagion breaks out afresh, if they dig them up sooner. Various short accounts of costly smallpox epidemics can be found in pre-nineteenth century Thai and European sources. In the early nineteenth century smallpox was still a matter of major concern. In 1825 Henry Burney reported that it was the real plague of Siam, and apparently it did not even spare those in the most privileged positions. Phraya Chula had recently lost a daughter, and just then a young prince and also one of the Phra'khlang's daughters were suffering from it. More information comes from Dr Bradley's personal diary, in the entry for December 1838: It is almost impossible to find a family of some years standing here that has not been severely visited with the small pox with the loss of some two or three or more lives. A very large majority of the inhabitants are very thickly pitted shewing that they were once sick of the small pox. He also noted that the sickness returned every year, and recorded a seasonal pattern: it commenced at the end of the wet season and lasted throughout three months of the dry season. Transposed to the European calendar, this meant that the annual scourge occurred between November and the end of February. There is some interesting information in early nineteenth century published sources concerning smallpox. Thus for example, there are two accounts of the conversation which took place on April 13, 1822, between John Crawfurd, George Finlayson and Prince Chetsadabodin, the prince who two years later succeeded to the Thai throne. It was Chetsadabodin who initiated the topic of smallpox, asking whether it were true that the English had found an antidote. His European visitors took considerable pains in explaining the discovery of the cow-pox and its value. The prince then wished to know whether the Governor-General of India would, if requested, send a skilful person to Siam to instruct the Siamese in the use of this antidote.5 In his account of this conversation, Dr Finlayson adds: 'On being told that such a person might be procured by his writing to the Governor General on the subject, he took no further notice of the matter. Finlayson makes it sound as if this were nothing but a frivolous inquiry on Chetsadabodin's part.