Major Mike | Today in History 05/14/18

Painting of British physician and naturalist, Edward Jenner (© James Northcote)

(1796) Scourge of smallpox meets its match

English scientist Edward Jenner inoculates a patient with the cowpox pathogen, thereby immunizing him from smallpox, a highly infectious, scarring plague that has already killed millions. Jenner has created the world’s first vaccine and will be called ‘the father of immunology.’

Smallpox vaccine, the first successful vaccine to be developed, was introduced by Edward Jenner in 1796. He followed up his observation that milkmaids who had previously caught cowpox did not later catch smallpox by showing that inoculated cowpox protected against inoculated smallpox. The word “vaccine” is derived from Variolae vaccinae, the term devised by Jenner to denote cowpox and used in the long title of his An enquiry into the causes and effects of Variolae vaccinae, known by the name of cow pox. Vaccination, the term which soon replaced cowpox inoculation and vaccine inoculation, was first used in print by Jenner’s friend, Richard Dunning in 1800. Initially, the terms vaccine/vaccination referred only to smallpox, but in 1881 Louis Pasteur proposed that to honour Jenner the terms be widened to cover the new protective inoculations being introduced.

Edward Jenner, FRS was an English physician and scientist who was the pioneer of smallpox vaccine, the world’s first vaccine. The terms “vaccine” and “vaccination” are derived from Variolae vaccinae, the term devised by Jenner to denote cowpox. He used it in 1796 in the long title of his Inquiry into the Variolae vaccinae known as the Cow Pox, in which he described the protective effect of cowpox against smallpox.

Born: May 17, 1749 · Berkeley, United Kingdom
Died: Jan 26, 1823 · Berkeley, United Kingdom
Romance: Catherine Kingscote
Education: University of St Andrews · St George’s, University of London · St George’s Hospital
Parents: Stephen Jenner (Father) · Sarah Jenner (Mother)
Children: Catherine Fitzhardinge Jenner (Daughter) · Robert Fitzhardinge Jenner (Son) · Edward Robert Jenner (Son)
Highlights
1749: Edward Anthony Jenner was born on 17 May 1749 (6 May Old Style) in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, as the eighth of nine children.

1774: For example, Dorset farmer Benjamin Jesty successfully vaccinated and presumably induced immunity with cowpox in his wife and two children during a smallpox epidemic in 1774, but it was not until Jenner’s work that the procedure became widely understood.

1796: He used it in 1796 in the long title of his Inquiry into the Variolae vaccinae known as the Cow Pox, in which he described the protective effect of cowpox against smallpox.

1796: On 14 May 1796, Jenner tested his hypothesis by inoculating James Phipps, an eight-year-old boy who was the son of Jenner’s gardener.

1798: An inquiry into the causes and effects of the variolae vaccinae written by Edward Jenner was first published in 1798.

1823: He never fully recovered and eventually died of an apparent stroke, his second, on 26 January 1823, aged 73.