In the modern world, Vaccines are endless. Starting from birth, people are vaccinated throughout their lives against a wide range of diseases to provide immunity. However, the concept of a vaccine took a long time to discover and the scientist who played a key role in the creation of vaccines was Edward Jenner.
Edward Jenner was born on the 17th of May 1749 in Berkeley (Gloucestershire) as the eighth of nine children. Whilst at school, Jenner was inoculated with smallpox. This would have a lasting effect on his health. Doctors believed that if people were given a small dose of the virus (inoculated), they may develop immunity. However, if the dose was too strong the person would develop smallpox and die. Even if people survived the disease, they were left with scars.
In 1770, aged 21, Jenner became an apprentice under surgeon John Hunter at St George’s Hospital (London). Hunter would often give Jenner advice, helping him gain experience in medicine. In 1792, Jenner obtained a medical degree from St Andrews university furthering his credentials as a doctor.
After many years without success in finding a vaccine, Jenner observed that the pus in cowpox blisters protected people from smallpox (Some people say he observed that milkmaids affected with cowpox did not suffer from smallpox, although this is believed to be a myth).
To test his hypothesis about cowpox, Jenner inoculated an eight-year-old boy called James Phillips (son of Jenner’s gardener) with cowpox. He scraped the pus from a milkmaid’s blisters and injected the pus into Phillips. Phillips felt uneasiness and experienced a fever, but no infection occurred, and Phillips later recovered. Phillips was later inoculated with smallpox but did not suffer any symptoms.
Jenner would test his hypothesis on 23 additional subjects including his 11- month son Robert. He found that nobody caught smallpox if they were injected with the pus from cowpox blisters. In 1798, Jenner published a book explaining his findings about how to prevent smallpox. He referred to his method as vaccination because the Latin word for cow is vacca.
At first, Jenner’s findings faced lots of opposition, particularly from the church who did not like using a disease from cows as a vaccine and from a few doctors who were making a lot of money from inoculating people with smallpox. The opposition grew when the Royal Society of London did not publish Jenner’s work.
Eventually the vaccine was accepted, and in 1840, the British government provided the cowpox vaccine for free. In 1852, the government made the vaccine compulsory and fined parents if their children were not vaccinated. The success spread throughout Europe which resulted in the vaccine being in high demand. Even Napoleon, who was at war with Britain, had his troops vaccinated and gave Jenner a medal for his discoveries. At the request of Jenner, Napoleon released two English prisoners and allowed them to return home. Napoleon would later say that he could not “refuse anything to one of the greatest benefactors of mankind”.
Even today, the discovery of the cowpox vaccine influences the world. Whilst the smallpox virus continued to be around long after Jenner’s death in 1823, the number of cases and deaths gradually decreased. In 1980, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that smallpox had been eradicated and there were no more cases.
In 2002, to honor his contribution to society, Jenner was named in the BBC’s list of the 100 greatest Britons (he was voted for by the UK public). In 1999, Jenner was commemorated on postage stamps by the Royal Mail. On the 21st of September 1999, Jenner featured in the “World Changers” issue of stamps along with Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday and Alan Turing.
Edward Jenner would go on to publish many books on the smallpox vaccine. He also became a member of many different science societies around the world and became president of the Jennerian society (1803-1809). In 1808, with the aid of the government, Jenner founded the National Vaccine Establishment, but Jenner felt dishonored by the men in charge and resigned.
In 1821, Jenner was made the mayor of Berkeley and was appointed a physician to King George the fourth. In his last years, he continued to study zoology. In 1823 (the last year of his life), he presented his observations on the migration of birds to the Royal Society.Whilst Edward Jenner contributed many things to society, his main achievement will always be the discovery of the smallpox vaccine (It is estimated that Jenner saved 530 million lives).
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