Chapter 291 - The Second Vaccination Campaign

Einar, who was in one of the rooms of the old great hall, looked with joy at the woman who was lying on the bed, somewhat weakly.

This is because her body showed signs of cowpox, this is why she volunteered to take the virus.

"Felipa, take care of the woman these days while I organize the vaccination process for all the newcomers.

We may be weak against dangerous diseases, but at least against smallpox we can be resistant.

Which is an achievement at this stage, but every few months we must be vaccinated for all slaves.

To do this, I will insert the vaccination cards. That way, there will be a reliable record and we will know that personnel are missing to be vaccinated. "

After this, Einar left the room and took off his mask to go to the bathroom to wash his body, to avoid bringing any problems home.

When he left, having taken a bath, he first went to school because he would need the help of Aila and the monks, as well as children who already knew how to write.

He would also need slaves to sew and punch the vaccination card.

First, a reception table would be created in the old great room where the names would be taken. In that place, they would have to wait for a paper with their name to be taken to the printing press.

There, they would use a sheet of waxed paper that has a pre-printed form just to have the person's name printed on it.

After this, that slave would be taken to another place where some slaves would pierce the blade with an iron hole punch, then other slaves.

They would receive the sheet and sew it with thread to two sheets of cardboard so that the sheets could not be separated.

All this process should not take more than 5 minutes, so Einar began to prepare everything, as it was the preamble to vaccination.

The process of creating the card would begin tomorrow and would last two days. After that, the vaccination would begin in that way when more slaves arrived.

Smallpox vaccination could be implemented in a more orderly manner, also to avoid future problems.

Each new slave would be registered and given an identity card and a vaccination card.

Although there is only one vaccine and it is only for Smallpox, it will be a good way to create a tradition that will help doctors in the future.

Because people will be used to getting vaccinated to prevent the spread of disease.

The next day, the work of creating the vaccination card for all slaves, children and Roman soldiers began.

To begin with, it began with the children and the women, who lined up in a large line that began at the orphanage school.

The women and children entered the classrooms where the children wrote the name of each of them.

Later, a group of slaves took the sheets with the names to the printing house where the artisans were supervised by Seren.

Changing the letters of the printers was a somewhat tedious process, but it took only 2 minutes with each name.

To avoid problems, first a slave with the names that had been written down in a classroom passed by. When he had the names ready, the slave went to a workshop.

Where were some slaves with a drilling machine which made four holes in the document.

Later, that document was given to other slaves who began to sew two sheets of cardboard to protect the sheet.

When they were finished, they were handed over to the slaves, who took them to the classrooms to be delivered.

The complete process had a waiting time of only 7 minutes, but because of the large number of children writing the names.

By noon, over 2,000 vaccination cards had been manufactured; To prevent children from working for a long time.

Einar, Kassia, Felipa, and many members of the Roman army who could write relieved the children at one in the afternoon.

For their help, the children received a small copper medal engraved with the symbol of Aesculapius.

To make the medals, copper coins were used which passed through a press that had the symbol of Aesculapius engraved.

Although Einar would have liked to make it much bigger and more beautiful, for lack of time, it was the best he could do.

However, the children liked the honor of having a medal because they knew that they had done their job correctly.

At the end of the day, they reached the 5,000 vaccination cards delivered, but there were still thousands more, so they all went to rest.

Except for the slaves, who had to clean the halls and prepare the materials for the next day.

At dawn, Einar had breakfast and said goodbye to his children before starting to prepare everything to finish the creation of the vaccination cards.

After checking that all the sheets were ready and that the cardboard sheets were ready, I wait for the children, who would arrive at 8 in the morning.

Like the day before, all the children worked hard writing the names of all the Roman slaves and soldiers that passed by.

Following the same procedure, the vaccination cards began to be created as the day before.

Although, luckily for everyone, the last vaccination record was made at 3 in the afternoon, so Einar decided to give everyone the day off.

Well, tomorrow the inoculation of the vaccine would begin, which was nothing more than liquid from the chickenpox pustules.

But that it had the properties of causing a non-fatal smallpox, which prevented the true smallpox from being contagious.

The next day Felipa, Kassia and Einar were dressed in white medical clothes, leather gloves, ski goggles and face masks.

They prepared all the tools, including a large quantity of fluid from the cowpox pustules.

To begin, the first to pass were the children, who had a minor cut where liquid was put from the pustules.

Being quite superficial and not being very large the wound, it was guaranteed that the children could not suffer an infection.

Throughout the morning, the three of them worked tirelessly to vaccinate everyone. You must also remember when Einar told them that they could feel bad.

But it was a temporary thing that would prevent them from getting the dangerous smallpox, so no one filed a complaint because smallpox epidemics were dangerous.

Many of the slaves or Roman soldiers had seen firsthand their neighbors or acquaintances die from smallpox.

So if they had the opportunity to be immune to that disease, they were not afraid because death from that disease was much worse than feeling bad for a few days.

The vaccination process lasted until the afternoon, where they took a break of one hour.

Kassia, who had taken off her ski goggles, looked at the condensed sweat on the goggles and, drinking some water, sighed.

"This is complicated, but today we finished the vaccination process.

Do you think that with that, we can prevent a plague of smallpox among the slaves? "

Einar nodded as he drank water from a canteen "We have to be doing this until we have something called herd immunity.

If ten people from a community live together and 7 are vaccinated.

If an unvaccinated person becomes ill, the virus will not be transmitted.

Of course, it only works with smallpox because there are viruses that, even if you have been infected, are still a vector of disease.

We must always emphasize cleanliness and the use of the mask in case of cough, not to mention that we must search among the slaves.

Symptoms of tuberculosis, which include a severe cough, this disease is highly contagious.

Although if we can get oil, I could try to refine it to try to vulcanize it with sulfur.

I will have to do many experiments but I can be successful. I will have created the first plastic, but we will probably have to wait until we get rubber from our lands on the new continent.

Although if the situation gets complicated, I will use steel, leather and animal intestines to create gas masks.

The activated charcoal, asbestos and cotton filter should be enough to avoid getting infected in the event of a pandemic.

The only thing I appreciate is that we are in an area without insects, so flies and mosquitoes are not a problem.

But the further we go, the further south we must be more careful. "

Kassia smiled and looked fondly at Einar, knowing that her husband would do the impossible to ensure her safety.

For her part, Felipa only laughed because seeing her mother and stepfather behave like a couple who have known each other for a long time was something strange, but it didn't bother her.

After this they continued with the duty of vaccination which lasts until late at night, so once they finished.

Kassia and Einar took a bath in the old great hall, as they would sleep in that place because they were too tired to reach the palace.