About Edward Jenner.
Answers
Answer:
Edward Jenner (17 May 1749 – 26 January 1823) was an English doctor who helped create and popularise a vaccination for smallpox. Through his pioneering work, he helped save the lives of countless people, and over time became known as the ‘father of immunology’ and later vaccinations
Explanation:
Edward Jenner was born in Berkeley, Gloucestershire on 18th May 1749. The son of a local vicar, he was interested in natural history and medicine from an early age. Aged 14, he began his training to be a doctor in Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire before completing his training in London. He studied at St George’s Hospital under surgeon John Hunter and was influenced by his philosophy of seeking new discoveries – “Don’t think, try”
In 1773, Jenner returned to his native Berkeley to become a general practitioner. In his spare time, he pursued his study of native wildlife and also followed any new developments in medical science.
Jenner and the Vaccine for Small Pox
During the late eighteenth-century, one of the most feared diseases was smallpox. The disease was common and killed up to 33% of those who contracted it. At the time, there was little-known treatments or vaccinations that could prevent it.
Edward JennerJenner was interested in the observation that milkmaids who were in close contact with cows, very rarely contacted the disease. With this revelation, Jenner was interested in testing a theory that inoculating humans with a strain of the cowpox virus could protect them from smallpox – through the immunity gained from the similar, but much less dangerous, cowpox strain.
This practice of using a cowpox virus had been tried on the odd occasions before, for example, farmers such as Benjamin Jesty had deliberately arranged a cowpox infection for their family. However, these unofficial tests had not proved anything to a sceptical medical, scientific community.
In 1796, Jenner tested his theory by inoculating James Phipps, a young boy of eight with cowpox blisters from the hand of a milkmaid who had caught cowpox. The young James contacted a mild fever but, to Jenner’s relief, when he gave James Phipps variolous material, he proved resistant to this mild form of smallpox. He wrote in 1801:
‘It now becomes too manifest to admit of controversy, that the annihilation of the Small Pox, the most dreadful scourge of the human species, must be the final result of this practice’ (BBC Smallpox)
His reputation led to his appointment as a physician extraordinary to King George IV and was made a Justice of the Peace.
He died on 25 January 1823, after a stroke from which he never recovered
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