Jenner, Edward

Jenner, Edward, 1749–1823, English physician; pupil of John Hunter. His invaluable experiments beginning in 1796 with the vaccination of eight-year-old James Phipps proved that cowpox provided immunity against smallpox. His discovery was instrumental in ridding many areas of the world of a dread disease and laid the foundations of modern immunology as a science.

Bibliography

See W. R. Le Fanu, A Bio-bibliography of Edward Jenner, 1749–1823 (1951).

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Jenner, Edward

Edward Jenner, detail of an oil painting by James Northcote, 1803; in the National Portrait …

(credit: Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London)

(born May 17, 1749, Berkeley, Gloucestershire, Eng.—died Jan. 26, 1823, Berkeley) English surgeon, discoverer of the smallpox vaccine. He was apprenticed to a surgeon at 13, and at 21 he became the house pupil of John Hunter, who gave him further training and stressed the need for experimentation and observation. Jenner had noticed as a youth that people who had been sick with the relatively harmless disease cowpox did not contract smallpox. In 1796 he inoculated a young boy with matter taken from a dairymaid's fresh cowpox lesions. The boy caught cowpox and, when subsequently inoculated with smallpox, did not contract it. Despite early difficulties, the procedure spread and the death rate from smallpox fell. Jenner received worldwide recognition (though he was also subject to attacks and slander). He retired from public life in 1815 after the death of his wife.

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Jenner, Edward 

Born May 17, 1749, in Berkeley; died there Jan. 26, 1823. English physician; discoverer of the smallpox vaccine.

Jenner studied medicine in London, and in 1773 he began an independent medical practice. He observed that milkmaids that had recovered from cowpox were not susceptible to smallpox. On May 14, 1769, he inoculated eight-year-old James Phipps with cowpox, and 1½ months later, with human smallpox; the boy did not become ill. Repeating on Phipps these inoculations over several months and years, Jenner demonstrated the possibility and high effectiveness of vaccinations against smallpox. A smallpox vaccination institute (the Royal Jennerian Society) was founded in London in 1803. Jenner was its first and lifetime director. He was also an honorary member of many academies, universities, and scientific societies of Western European countries.

WORKS

An Inquiry Into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, a Disease Discovered in Some of the Western Countries of England, Particularly Gloucestershire, and Known by the Name of the Cow Pox. London, 1798.
Further Observations on the Variolae Vaccinae or Cow Pox. London, 1799.
In Russian translation:In Gubert, V. O. Ospa i ospoprivivanie, vol. 1. St. Petersburg, 1896. Chapter 14.

REFERENCES

Gubert, V. O. EduardDzhenneri egootkrytie. St. Petersburg, 1896.
Karlik, L. N. “Eduard Dzhenner (k 150-letiiu so dnia otkrytiia ospoprivivamia).” Pediatriia, 1946, no. 4.