18/19: E. Jenner

• Before Edward Jenner


  Smallpox - one of the deadliest diseases of the time.
• Edward Jenner's discovery

  • He inserted pus taken from a cowpox pustule and inserted it into an incision on a boy's arm.
  • He was testing his theory that milkmaids who suffered the mild disease of cowpox never contracted smallpox.
  • Jenner subsequently proved that having been inoculated with cowpox Phipps was immune to smallpox.
  • In 1798, Jenner sent his findings to The Royal Society, but they rejected his work.
  • Instead, Jenner published his findings himself. He called his technique vaccination, from the Latin word for cow, vacca.
• Jenner laid the foundations for... (after)

  • Parliament was obviously impressed and gave Jenner £30,000 to open a vaccination clinic in London.
  • By 1803, doctors in America were using his idea and in 1805, Napoleon had his soldiers vaccinated.
  • More vaccines were soon developed