Tomás Romay, the doctor who introduced vaccination in Cuba

April 3, 2021

Tomás Romay passed away 172 years ago on this March 30th, but we Cubans keep him very present in these times of pandemic. It is enough to recall that he was the one who introduced vaccination in our country against smallpox, and for his preventive actions he is considered the first national hygienist.

Tomás José Domingo Rafael del Rosario Romay y Chacón was a physician, humanist, hygienist, botanist, chemist, educator and sage. A man ahead of his time if we consider that he was born on December 21, 1764 and developed considerable contributions to the progress of Medicine, Chemistry, Botany, Agriculture, Hygiene, Education and Culture in general. For all of this he is also considered the initiator of the scientific movement in our nation.

He was born on Empedrado Street No. 71 between Compostela and Habana, where the "Cuba" building is currently located with the number 360 in Old Havana, and he was the first of the 18 children of the marriage between Lorenzo Romay y de la Oliva and María de los Ángeles Chacón.

He obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree on March 24, 1783 and began his studies in Jurisprudence at the San Carlos Seminary, which he would later abandon, upon becoming convinced of his vocation as a physician, to which he dedicated himself despite the prejudices of the time that considered the profession as little esteemed, and he graduated in 1789.

In Romay's era, the degree of Bachelor in Medicine did not authorize one to practice the profession, for that a two-year postgraduate program of practice with an experienced physician was required, which he completed with doctor Manuel Sacramento in order to present himself for examination before the Royal Court of the Protomedicato. On September 12, 1791, Romay became the thirty-third Medical graduate in Cuba. On January 4, 1796 he married Mariana González, with whom he had six children.

The doctor became one of the principal intellectual figures of the progressive movement promoted by the great Creole bourgeoisie in the first reformist current of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, alongside the statesman and economist Francisco de Arango y Parreño, as well as Nicolás Calvo de la Puerta y O'Farrill, who served as mentor to the young physician.

While completing his two years of medical practice (1789-1791) with doctor Sacramento, he was co-founder on October 24, 1790, with governor Luis de Las Casas Aragorri, of the Papel Periódico de la Habana, the first Cuban periodic publication. He was its first editor and director until 1848.

In 1791 he presented himself as a candidate for the chair of Pathology at the Royal and Pontifical University of Havana, with a thesis on the contagion of tuberculosis, which he obtained by competition on December 6, receiving the title of Licentiate in Medicine on December 24, 1791. He later completed a doctorate at the University of Havana, from which he graduated on June 24, 1792.

He was also co-founder along with Las Casas of the Royal Patriotic Society of Havana, currently known as the Economic Society of Friends of the Country. On January 17, 1793 he entered as a regular member of the Society and was a prominent and active member. He became an Honorary member in 1834 and director in 1842 of the same.

In addition to being a professor of Philosophy and Pathology at the University of San Jerónimo de la Habana, Romay was dean of the Faculty of Medicine in 1832 and performed the humanitarian work of his profession at the Royal House of Charity, an organization of which he was also one of the founders.

THE HISTORY OF VACCINATION IN CUBA

His most meritorious work and the one that immortalized him was the introduction of the smallpox vaccine in Cuba, beginning in February 1804. An epidemic of smallpox, which began in December 1803 and caused many deaths in January 1804, was the inspiration for the physician to introduce this novel treatment to the island. He also knew that the expedition sent by King Carlos IV that was bringing the life-saving vaccine would take time to arrive in Havana.

In Cuba vaccination was known simply as an "inoculation" and was practiced based on European experience. In 1802, Cuban physicians learned of the procedure that used cowpox pus and which, for that reason, was called "vaccination."

At the commission of the Patriotic Society, Romay began his campaign from 1803 onwards to extend the procedure and traveled to the interior of the Island in search of finding and investigating the virus and fighting against the supporters of "inoculation," who obtained profits and claimed that vaccination would be ineffective.

To prove the opposite, Romay resorted to a public demonstration risking the lives of two of his sons, previously vaccinated, whom he used as test subjects to overcome the fears, doubts and hesitations regarding its effectiveness. In January 1804 the first vaccinations were practiced in Santiago de Cuba.

On May 26, 1804 the Spanish expedition sent to introduce the vaccine in several Hispanic colonies arrived in Havana, and was surprised to verify that the vaccine had already spread throughout the country, thanks to Romay, who had been applying it successfully since February 12.

They then created the Central Vaccination Board on July 13, 1804, to systematize this practice, and designated Romay as president and Facultative Secretary. His work at the head of this institution proved decisive so that, by the end of the nineteenth century, smallpox became an uncommon disease in Cuba, as Romay advocated for multiple vaccination of each individual and for its mandatory decree for the entire population.

He died at the age of 84, a victim of cancer, in the early morning of March 30, 1849 in his home in Havana.