Born on 17th May 1749. Edward Jenner was the creator of the smallpox vaccine. It has been estimated that the task he started has led to the saving of more human lives than the work of any other person. Smallpox was the most feared and greatest killer of Jennet’s time. In today’s terms it was as deadly as cancer or heart disease. It killed 10% of the population, rising to in towns and cities where infection spread easily.
From the early days of his career Edward Jenner had been intrigued by country-lore which said that people who caught cowpox from their cows (a mild skin infection which cleared up by itself after a few days) could not contract smallpox. In May 1796, a dairymaid consulted Jenner about a rash on her hand. He diagnosed cowpox, and at the same time decided that he would put the old wives’ tale to the test. He scratched the maid’s hand with a scalpel, and infected several of his patients with cowpox. As he had anticipated, and undoubtedly to his great relief, none of them caught smallpox.
Vaccination with cowpox became compulsory in 1853. And the technique of introducing material under the skin to produce protection against disease became universally known as vaccination, a word derived from the Latin name for the cow (vacca), in Jenner’s honor
