In New Spain, he began his research in botany
applied to the cure of diseases
Hélène Gicquel Museum of Lázaro Galdiano (Madrid)
Botanical Garden of
Madrid (18th century),
closely linked to Balmis;
file of the physician
M.J. Grajales, enlisted
in the medical voyage.
Surgical saw
of the time.
August 2020 Revista Española de Defensa 45
General Military Archive in Segovia
was forced to declare himself exempt
from military service in several drafts
for different reasons, among them, his
marriage to Josefa, daughter of the
physician Tomás Mataix, with whom
he had a son in 1775.
That year, however, he participated as
a physician’s assistant in the expedition
headed by Alejandro O’Reilly against
Algiers, the failure of which involved the
loss of many human lives. First on the
North African coast and later in Alicante,
where the wounded were disembarked,
Balmis gained experience in this
profession and was promoted through
the medical ranks until he obtained his
surgeon’s degree at the Royal Court of
Medicine in Valencia in 1778.
ENLISTED IN 1779
A year later, he enlisted in the Spanish
Navy as a second assistant surgeon
and served in the Infantry Regiment in
Zamora, one of the regiments assigned
to the siege of Gibraltar during the War
of Independence of the United States
of America. Shortly afterwards, as a
military surgeon, he crossed the Atlantic
for the first time with the reinforcement
troops that would end up tipping the
balance in favour of Spain and its allies,
giving rise to the birth of the American
giant.
In New Spain (the Americas),
completely detached from his family,
Balmis fully developed his scientific
vocation. He worked as a surgeon at
the Hospital in Xalapa and, in 1786,
he was appointed surgeon-major at
the Amor de Dios Military Hospital in
the capital of the viceroyalty, where he
graduated in Arts from the University
of Mexico (1787).
Temporarily separated from service,
he devoted himself to the study of
botany. He travelled around New
Spain’s territory in search of native
plants with medicinal benefits and, as
director of the venereal disease ward
at San Andres Hospital —merged
with the Amor de Dios Hospital since
1790—, Balmis experimented and was
persuaded of the benefits of agave and
begonia roots to cure certain sexually
transmitted diseases.
He had to momentarily stop his
research because the Viceroy ordered
him to return to Spain to fulfil his
marital obligations, since his wife had
written to the Monarch declaring the
state of abandonment in which her
husband had left her.
In 1791, Balmis set off for the
Peninsula to resolve his marital affairs,
an opportunity he seized to take a great
number of plants with him for the
Botanical Garden of Madrid.
The 1790s, halfway between Europe
and America, were the years of his
recognition and social rise. Once his
therapeutic treatment was approved in
Mexico, he was commissioned to carry
out his experiments in three hospitals
of the Spanish Royal Court. There, he
was forced to defend himself against
his detractors by means of a document
that was widely distributed in the Old
Continent and in which he scientifically
demonstrated the effectiveness of the
medicinal plants he worked with.
He soon gained recognition. In 1795
he was appointed honorary physician
to the royal chamber of King Charles
IV and, after graduating in medicine
from the University of Toledo (1797)
and studying at the Royal Academy
of Medicine and Practical Surgery in
Madrid, he became a full member of
the Academy of Medicine of Madrid.
Meanwhile, he returned to New Spain
in 1794 and 1797, this last time as a
physician to the royal chamber of the
Viceroy’s wife, with whom he returned
to the Peninsula in 1799.
Shortly before that, in 1796, the
Englishman E. Jenner had discovered
the vaccine against smallpox, a
milestone that received wide coverage
all over Spain at the beginning of the
19th century. Balmis soon became one
of its supporters and helped to distribute
the vaccine by translating into Spanish
the work of Frenchman Jacques L.
Moreau on the benefits of vaccination,
which he also prefaced in 1803.
Feeling confident about the possibility
of eradicating a disease that caused
the death of nearly 20 per cent of the
population, Balmis convinced the King
to bring the vaccine to his domains in
America. A project that was submitted
and approved by the Board of Physicians
of the Royal Chamber, among which were
also servicemen Antonio Gimbernat,
Leonardo Galli and Ignacio Lacaba.