Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, episode 470, The Vaccinators, Part 2.

Last week, we covered the long and circuitous route by which knowledge of smallpox

vaccination made its way to Japan. It took 22 years from the invention of the vaccine

by the English physician Edward Jenner in 1798,

but in 1820 the Nagasaki-based translator Baba Sajaro completed a text on vaccination and how it worked.

So, job done, right? Now all the information needed to create vaccines and crush one of the

great scourges of human health is readily available.

Surely, from this point onward, nothing can go wrong.

Except, of course, not quite.

For one thing, as anyone who has lived through, let's say, the past few years knows by now,

it's one thing to have the technology

required to create a vaccine. It's quite another to manage a massive rollout such that anyone at

risk from the disease can be effectively immunized. After all, you need to train a bunch of people

in how to administer vaccines and set up the logistics to transport your vaccines everywhere,

which is quite a bit easier today in an age of mass refrigeration, as trying to keep the mild

cowpox contagion alive long enough to transport it proved to be a bit of a trick.

You also need massive public health campaigns to teach people the benefits of vaccination and

overcome any hesitancy they might have around it. After all, on its face, the idea does

sound kind of nuts, deliberately shoving some very gross diseased matter into your body so you

will get kind of sick, but not badly sick, but don't worry because then you'll

be immune? I mean, even for someone thoroughly convinced of the benefits, it sounds kind of insane.

All of these issues apply to any vaccine rollout from smallpox to polio to COVID-19. But because

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