October 23 in Swedish History
1801: the first vaccination against smallpox is performed in Sweden. The first smallpox vaccine was made in 1796 from a liquid taken from cows suffering from cowpox, a disease similar to but milder than smallpox. British doctor Edward Jenner gave this liquid to an eight-year old boy through two scratches in his skin, which became a sort of inoculation. The boy then got cowpox, but it turned out he was protected against smallpox.
There were also some earlier, simpler kinds of inoculations. For instance, King Gustav III and his sister were inoculated against smallpox in 1769, whereas Queen Ulrika died of the disease in 1741. In Sweden it became obligatory to vaccinate all children against smallpox as early as 1816, at which time the number of smallpox victims was greatly reduced. In 1963, there was an outbreak of smallpox in Stockholm; 27 got the disease, of which four died. Two of them were not vaccinated, the other two had been vaccinated 40 years earlier.