From Smallpox to COVID: Vaccination in the Czech Lands

Medical Museum Exhibition

The small exhibition From Smallpox to COVID introduces the history of vaccination from Edward Jenner and the Empress Maria Theresia, through the struggle of doctors and public health specialist with tuberculosis and postwar vaccination campaigns to the vaccines defeating the COVID-19 pandemic. Visitors will see examples of instruments and vaccines, simple and decorated certificates dating from three centuries or colorful health education leaflets.

The exhibit is open in the National Medical Library Visitor Center on the second floor, during the Library hours, from October 2, 2023.

Early in the 19 century, vaccination offered protection against first deadly infection, smallpox or variola. Edward Jenner demonstrated the effectiveness of inoculation with the cowpox virus in 1798. State authorities promoted the measure in Austria and other states. Vaccines against rabies, cholera, anthrax, plague and typhoid fever date from the 19 century as well. However, it took decades to make certain vaccines both effective and safe. It took even longer for vaccination to gain public support and for public health institutions to be able and willing to immunize the majority of people at risk. The story of vaccination from smallpox to COVID-19 tells about the triumph of science, the expansion of public health care, global inequality and the effort to overcome it as well as people’s persistent distrust of the partnership between science and the state.