Tomás Romay will have been dead for 177 years this March 30th, but Cubans keep him very much in mind during these times of pandemic, remembering that he was the one who introduced smallpox vaccination to our country and, due to his preventative measures, is considered the first national hygienist.
Tomás José Domingo Rafael del Rosario Romay y Chacón was a physician, humanist, hygienist, botanist, chemist, educator, and scholar. A man ahead of his time, he was born on December 21, 1764, and made considerable contributions to the advancement of medicine, chemistry, botany, agriculture, hygiene, education, and culture in general. For all these reasons, he is also considered the initiator of the Scientific Movement in our nation.
He was born on Empedrado Street No. 71 between Compostela and Havana, where the "Cuba" building is currently located with the number 360 in Old Havana, and was the first of the 18 children born to the marriage of 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 Law at the San Carlos Seminary, which he later abandoned upon realizing his calling to medicine. He dedicated himself to this profession despite the prejudices of the time, which held it in low esteem, and graduated in 1789.
In Romay's time, a Bachelor of Medicine degree did not authorize one to practice medicine; for that, a two-year postgraduate course of practical training with an experienced physician was required. He completed this course with Dr. Manuel Sacramento in order to take the examination before the Royal Tribunal 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, and later became one of the main intellectual figures of the progressive movement promoted by the great Creole bourgeoisie in the first reformist current of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, along with the statesman and economist Francisco de Arango y Parreño, as well as Nicolás Calvo de la Puerta y O'Farrill, who served as a mentor to the young doctor.
While completing his two years of medical practice (1789-1791) with Dr. Sacramento, he co-founded the Papel Periódico de la Habana (Havana Newspaper) on October 24, 1790, with Governor Luis de Las Casas Aragorri. This was Cuba's first periodical publication, and he served as its first editor and director until 1848.
In 1791, he applied for the Chair of Pathology at the Royal and Pontifical University of Havana with a thesis on the contagion of tuberculosis. He won the position through competitive examination on December 6, 1791, and received his medical degree on December 24, 1791. He then pursued a doctorate at the University of Havana, graduating on June 24, 1792.
He was also a co-founder, along with Las Casas, of the Royal Patriotic Society of Havana, now known as the Economic Society of Friends of the Country. On January 17, 1793, he joined the Society as a full member and was a prominent and active member. He became an Honorary Member in 1834 and a Director in 1842.
In addition to being a professor of Philosophy and Pathology at the University of San Jerónimo in Havana, Romay served as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in 1832 and dedicated himself to the humanitarian work of his profession at the Royal House of Charity, an organization he also helped found.
His most meritorious contribution, and the one that immortalized him, was introducing and spreading the smallpox vaccine in Cuba starting in February 1804. This contribution was inspired by a smallpox epidemic, which began in December 1803 and caused many deaths in January 1804, and by the knowledge that the expedition sent by King Charles IV, carrying the life-saving vaccine, would be delayed in arriving in Havana.
In Cuba, vaccination was known simply as "inoculation" and was practiced based on European experience. In 1802, Cuban physicians learned of the procedure that used cowpox pus and was therefore called "vaccination." Commissioned by the Patriotic Society, Romay began his campaign in 1803 to expand the vaccination program. He traveled to the interior of the island to find and investigate the virus and to combat the proponents of "inoculation," who were profiting from it and claimed that vaccination would be ineffective.
To prove them wrong, Romay held a public demonstration, risking the lives of two of his sons, whom he used as test subjects to overcome fears, doubts, and hesitations regarding the vaccine's effectiveness. In January 1804, the first vaccinations were administered in Santiago de Cuba.
On May 26, 1804, a Spanish expedition arrived in Havana, sent to introduce the vaccine to several Spanish colonies. They were surprised to find that the vaccine had already spread throughout the country, thanks to Romay, who had been successfully administering it since February 12.
The Central Vaccination Board was then created on July 13, 1804, to systematize this practice, and Romay was appointed president and secretary. His work at the head of this institution proved decisive in making smallpox a rare disease in Cuba by the end of the 19th century, as Romay advocated for multiple vaccinations for every individual and for making vaccination mandatory for the entire population.
He died at the age of 84, a victim of cancer, in the early morning of March 30, 1849, at his home in Havana, and is considered in our national history a precursor of the advances achieved by the Cuban scientific community.