reaction to his discovery

• it took time for people to accept vaccinations.
• Priests taught against the idea of vaccinations as they felt using animal infections to

  heal people went against God’s will.They regularly preached against it in

  congregation.
• The doctors who had been making a fortune out of using a smallpox inoculations were also against Jenner’s vaccination – more because it would harm their business and their personal wealth. They spread anti-Jenner propaganda.
• In 1798, The Royal Society refused to publish Jenner’s ideas. They were pleased that

  the vaccination worked but worried that he could not explain how it worked. Also, it

  didn’t help find cures for other diseases. Also, he was only a small, unknown GP

  rather than a more well known London doctor, his ideas were not as respected.
• Short Term Effect - However, the smallpox vaccination saved many lives. It quickly became popular in other countries and it is estimated that by 1800, 100,000 people around the world had been vaccinated. For example, The French commander Napoleon had his entire army vaccinated in 1805. In 1803 it was used widely in the

  USA. President Thomas Jefferson even wrote a thank you note to Jenner.
• Long Term Effect - By the end of the 19th century, vaccination against smallpox had been ‘normal’ in people’s lives. The statistics proved that the vaccination

  worked.

  Deaths fell dramatically after 1871 when the government began made

  vaccination compulsory. In 1979, the World Health Organisation announced that the disease had completely gone. Jenner’s work also inspired others like

  Pasteur and Koch to search for other vaccinations for other diseases.