Isabel Zendal

Isabel Zendal Gómez, born in 1773, was a Spanish nurse from Galicia who took part in the Balmis Expedition of 1803 to 1806, the Royal Philanthropic Expedition of the Vaccine that carried smallpox vaccination to South America and Asia. She had earlier supervised an orphanage in A Coruña, and on the voyage she cared for the group of orphan boys, twenty-two at first and later twenty-six, who carried the cowpox virus from which the vaccine was prepared by passing it from one boy to the next. The expedition had the backing of King Charles IV of Spain, whose daughter had died of smallpox. In 1950 the World Health Organization recognised her as the first nurse in history to take part in an international mission. Her name has been spelled in some three hundred ways, and a hospital in Madrid and a statue in A Coruña now honor her. This entry is a historical record, not medical advice.