Edward Jenner
On May 17th 1749 Edward Jenner was born into this world in Berkely, Gloucestershire, England to Stephen Jenner, he was a vicar for the parish. Edward had both brothers and sisters and when is father died when he was five his oldest brother Stephen stepped in as the head of the family. When Edward 13 he was sent to Wotton-Under-Edge for schooling and this is where he met Doctor Washbourn and decided he wanted to become a doctor. When a bit older he went to Sodbury where he learned from Doctor Daniel Ludlow, a surgeon. While under Doctor Ludlow’s care Edward overheard a girl saying that she could not get the dreaded smallpox disease because she’d already had another disease known as Cowpox. Edward was pulled in by this statement and decided to research this information. In 1770 at 21, Edward went to London and became a pupil resident in the house of John Hunter, an eminent London surgeon. Edward learned much from him and later on the two became lifelong friends. Dr. Edward Jenner died in Berkeley on January 26th 1823.
Dr. Edward researched and experiment with the Cowpox disease for several years. He found out there were actually two forms of the disease, but only one form could possibly provide a human body with immunity to Smallpox. A milkmaid named Sarah Nelmes visited Edward on May 14th 1796 for the treatment of Cowpox. Making his mind up Edward decided to test his vaccination on his gardener’s son, an 8 year old boy named James Phipps. The boy did get Cowpox but was fine within days and then Edward left the boy be for 8 weeks so he could build an immunity to the virus before exposing James to Smallpox and the boy didn’t get them.
Years later, in 1979, the deadly Smallpox disease was finally considered to be eradicated from this earth. (It is also interesting to note that the remaining supplies of the Smallpox virus were destroyed at this time.) However, his vaccine also paved the way for the development of modern-day Immunology.