Abstract

In Restoration Italy, producing, conserving, and distributing the smallpox vaccine represented one of the main challenges to overcome when public authorities intended to set up vaccination campaigns. By investigating the circulation of practical medical knowledge and the vaccine itself between the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, the Papal States and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, this article demonstrates that vaccination campaigns were not merely a matter of internal health policies. Instead, they depended on international networks involving governments, prominent physicians, and consuls, and represented crucial occasions for both mutual cooperation and political/diplomatic pressure.