Edward Jenner

• Since the early 18th century, inoculation was used to combat smallpox. The technique was brought back from Turkey by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and involved taking pus from a smallpox sufferer's pustule, scratching a healthy person and putting the pus into the scratch. This technique was very hit or miss, with some inoculated people developing a mild form of smallpox and others developing a severe version of the disease and dying. However, the fear of smallpox was so strong that many risked having their family inoculated, including the Princess of Wales.
• When he was young, Jenner had been starved, purged and bled to prepare for inoculation, also called variolation. He was infected with smallpox and locked in a stable with other boys until the disease had run its course.
• In 1773, Jenner was working as a local doctor in his home town Berkeley, Gloucestershire. He was interested in experimentation and observation, which he learned when he studies as a surgeon in London. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1788. He was also heavily interested in local stories of cowpox preventing smallpox, as seen with locals refusing inoculation as they claim they had immunity after suffering from cowpox.
• In 1796, a local dairymaid, Sarah Nelmes, went to Jenner has she had caught cowpox. Jenner took the opportunity to take some pus from one of Nelmes' blisters, and rub it into scratches he had made on the arm of a local boy, James Phipps. After he'd developed a mild fever and quickly recovered, Jenner variolated the boy with smallpox, where he suffered no ill effects. Jenner tested this with 23 different patients, none of whom caught smallpox.
• Jenner submitted his findings to the Royal Society, who refused to publish them as Jenner couldn't explain how his discovery worked and few men in the medical profession had even heard of cowpox. Furthermore, many of them were making a significant amount of money off inoculation and didn't want to stop.
• In 1798, Jenner published his results himself in 'An Enquiry into the causes and effects of Variola Vaccinae, known by the name of cowpox'. He called his technique vaccination and had over 100 leading London doctors sign a letter supporting his research and declaring their intention to use the vaccine. Parliament even voted him £30000 to establish a vaccination clinic in London.
• Jenner spent the rest of his professional life supplying doctors around the world with cowpox material safely and without contamination. He developed a technique that dried the cowpox matter into threads or onto glass.