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Iconography and Wax Models in Italian Early Smallpox Vaccination

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Medicine Studies

Abstract

Luigi Sacco (1769–1863) was the main protagonist of early vaccination campaign in Italy. He found a native source of vaccine lymph: with that, he personally vaccinated more than 500,000 people and furnished all Italy and some Middle East countries too. Starting from the pictures of his books, Sacco proposed to create wax models of “real” and “spurious” smallpox pustules in human, cow, sheep and horse; just to permit, not only to doctors, but also to all other health operators, the identification of the right pustules from where to extract active lymph for vaccination. In the Museum of Pathological Anatomy of the Padua University Medical School, we have four anatomical waxes which corresponded exactly to the explicative pictures in 1809 Sacco’s treatise on Vaccine. We have found the same models also at the University of Milan, Pavia and Bologna—the main cities of “Cisalpine Republic”, the state of North Italy formed at the epoch of Sacco following the Napoleon conquest. The history of the diffusion of these models presented in this text will be a starting point to develop wider questions. In particular, this history could be useful to improve our understanding of the birth of scientific and experimental medicine through XIX and XX Century.

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Acknowledgments

This article has been supported by a scholarship to Dr. Fabio Zampieri, titled “Evoluzione dell’Anatomia Patologica postmorgagnana. Dall’Anatomia statica all’anatomia dinamica: organo, tessuto, cellula, molecola”, of the Padua University Medical School “Progetto di Ateneo, anno 2008” on the “Morte improvvisa cardiaca e autopsia molecolare”. It has been supported also by a Research Grant to Dr. Alberto Zanatta, titled “Dalle antiche collezioni ad un moderno museo di anatomia patologica: salvaguardia e sviluppo”, given by the Department of Medical-Diagnostic Sciences and Special Therapies of the Padua University Medical School (2008–2010). We are grateful to prof. Gaetano Thiene for his support on our Section of Medical Humanities. We thank also the anonymous referee for his useful comments.

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  1. Faculty of Medicine, Department of Medical-Diagnostic Science and Special Therapies, Section of Medical Humanities, University of Padua, Via A. Gabelli 61, 35121, Padua, Italy

    Fabio Zampieri, Alberto Zanatta & Maurizio Rippa Bonati

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  1. Fabio Zampieri
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  2. Alberto Zanatta
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  3. Maurizio Rippa Bonati
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Correspondence to Fabio Zampieri.

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Zampieri, F., Zanatta, A. & Rippa Bonati, M. Iconography and Wax Models in Italian Early Smallpox Vaccination. Medicine Studies 2, 213–227 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12376-011-0057-5

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