In 1796, Edward Jenner made an incredible discovery that would change the course of human history. He found that cowpox \u2013 a virus that infected cows \u2013 could protect people from smallpox, a deadly disease that killed millions of people each year. Jenner’s discovery led to the development of one of the most successful vaccines in history, and it has saved countless lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Edward Jenner was born on May 17, 1749 in the town of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, England. He was the eighth of nine children and the son of a local farmer. Jenner grew up in a time when smallpox was a major killer. In fact, it was one of the leading causes of death in Europe at the time. In 1768, Jenner became an apprentice to a surgeon named Daniel Ludlow. Ludlow was one of the first people in England to advocate for inoculation against smallpox \u2013 a procedure that involved infecting people with a weakened form of the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jenner was fascinated by Ludlow’s work and decided to become a doctor himself. In 1773, he enrolled in the University of Edinburgh Medical School. After graduation, Jenner returned to Berkeley and began working as a country doctor. He soon married a local woman named Catherine Kingscote and they had two children together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1796, Edward Jenner made an incredible discovery that would change the course of human history. He found that cowpox \u2013 a virus that infected cows \u2013 could protect people from smallpox, a deadly disease that killed millions of people each year. Jenner’s discovery led to the development of one of the most successful vaccines in history, and it has saved countless lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jenner’s breakthrough began with his observation that milkmaids who had contracted cowpox were immune to smallpox. Cowpox is a relatively harmless virus that infects cows, but it shares many similarities with smallpox. Jenner hypothesized that if someone was infected with cowpox, they would be protected from smallpox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To test his theory, Jenner injected an eight-year-old boy named James Phipps with cowpox virus. A few weeks later, Jenner exposed the boy to smallpox and he did not get sick. This experiment was the first time that someone had been intentionally inoculated with a vaccine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jenner’s discovery soon caught on and people began vaccinating themselves and their children against smallpox. The vaccine was so successful that it eventually eradicated the disease from most of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Edward Jenner passed away in 1823, but his legacy lives on. He is considered to be one of the most important figures in the history of medicine and immunology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1796, Edward Jenner made an incredible discovery that would change the course of human history. He found that cowpox \u2013 a virus that infected cows \u2013 could protect people from smallpox, a deadly disease that killed millions of people each year. Jenner’s discovery led to the development of one of the most successful vaccines […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3917"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3917"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3919,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3917\/revisions\/3919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}