In 1979, smallpox officially became the first disease ever to be eradicated by mankind. The global efforts to defeat this dreadful pandemic, however, started almost two centuries before. One of the most important, and sometimes forgotten, events in the fight against smallpox was the Royal Philanthropic Expedition of the Vaccine, commissioned by Charles IV of Spain to physicians Francisco Xavier Balmis y Berenguer and Jose Salvany in 1804. The aim of this expedition was to take the smallpox vaccine, discovered by Jenner, to Spain's territories in the Americas and in the Far East. After several years of vaccination in modern day Puerto Rico, Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico and the Philippines, the expedition returned to Europe. To this day, the Balmis and Salvany expedition remains a great example of international cooperation, and a landmark in the history of public health.
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机译：1979年，天花正式成为人类有史以来第一种根除的疾病。但是，为战胜这种可怕的大流行而开展的全球努力始于近两个世纪。对抗天花的最重要也是有时被人们遗忘的事件之一是皇家慈善疫苗接种，该疫苗由西班牙的查理四世委托医生弗朗西斯科Xavier Balmis y Berenguer和Jose Salvany于1804年进行。将詹纳发现的天花疫苗带到西班牙在美洲和远东的领土。在现代波多黎各，古巴，委内瑞拉，厄瓜多尔，秘鲁，玻利维亚，智利，墨西哥和菲律宾进行了几年的疫苗接种后，探险队返回了欧洲。时至今日，Balmis和Salvany探险仍然是国际合作的典范，也是公共卫生历史上的里程碑。
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