Text D. Edward Jenner

Edward Jenner (1749-1823) was an English physician, the discoverer of vaccination. Jenner studied medicine in London, at St,George’s Hospital. He began practice in Berkeley when he was 24 years old.

In the 18^th century the whole world feared smallpox. One out of every five persons in London carried the marks of the disease on his face. It was the same in other countries of Europe. But these were the people who recovered from the disease. In those days smallpox was one of the chief causes of death.

Once Edward Jenner heard a milkmaid say: “I can’t catch smallpox, I’ve had cowpox”. So Jenner made a thorough study of all dairy diseases and found quite a lot of them. He believed that only one kind could be the preventive against smallpox. On May 14, 1796, Edward Jenner accomplished one of the most important tasks in the history of medicine. He vaccinated little Jimmy Phipps, the eight-year-old son of his neighbour, with matter from cowpox vesicles squeezed from the hands of milkmaid. Several weeks later Jenner infected the boy with smallpox matter. Time passed, and the boy remained absolutely free from the disease. During the next two years, Jenner repeated his experiment 23 times and felt certain enough of the truth of his discovery to publish his results. In 1798, he published an account calling his new method “vaccination” from the Latin word “vacca” meaning “a cow”.

The news of the wonderful discovery spread abroad. People rushed to their doctors to be vaccinated. Very soon there was no part of the world that had not taken up vaccination. France, Germany, Spain and Austria were the first. In America, Egypt, China the operation was done on thousands of people, and terrible smallpox began to disappear as if by magic.

Edward Jenner died at Berkely in 1823, aged 74. We ought to remember that Jenner brought into common use the doctrine of preventive medicine.

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