Edward Jenner

• Why was smallpox significant?

  It was one of the biggest killer diseases in the 18th century and it was highly contagious
• What was the death rate for smallpox?

  30% of people who caught it were killed
• What was the main form of prevention against smallpox before vaccination?

  Inoculation
• What was inoculation?

  Giving a healthy person a mild dose of the disease to help them build up resistance against the deadly version
• When did inoculation become accepted?

  After 1721
• Why did inoculation first come into view?

  Lady Wortley Montagu saw inoculation done in Turkey and decided to inoculate her kids
• When did inoculation become common?

  1740s
• What were the problems with inoculation?

  Religious objections- interfered with Gods will

  Lack of understanding

  Poor people could not afford to be vaccinated
• What did Edward Jenner observe about milk maids?

  The milk maids caught cowpox but they never caught smallpox so he theorised that cowpox protected against smallpox
• How did Edward Jenner test his theory?

  In 1796 he gave an 8 year old boy called James Phipps a dose of cowpox. Six weeks later he gave the boy a smallpox inoculation and he didn’t catch the disease
• How did Edward Jenner make sure his results were reliable?

  He repeated the experiment several times with 16 different patients
• When did Edward Jenner publish his findings?

  1798
• What were the reasons Edward Jenners findings were rejected?

  He couldn’t explain how it worked

  Doctors were profiting from

  inoculation

  He was not a fashionable city doctor
• Why was vaccination accepted?

  It was less dangerous than inoculation

  Members of the royal family were vaccinated
• How did Parliament help Edward Jenner fund his research?

  They gave him a £10,000 grant in 1802 after acknowledging his work
• When did the government make vaccination compulsory?

  1853