Jenner

Jenner, Edward, was born in 1749. Adopting the medical profession, he became a pupil of John Hunter. He had, when a youth, been impressed with an idea that small-pox and cow-pox were related in such a way that an attack of the one afforded immunity from the other. His serious investigations began in 1775, and were conducted with extreme caution; nor was it until 1798, after he had inoculated a patient with vaccine matter, and found his constitution proof against inoculations with variolous matter, that he ventured to publish his conclusions. The discovery was met by opponents, who denounced it as useless. However, the medical profession at home and abroad, the Court, and the public soon recognised Jenner's merits, and the result in this country was a decrease in the annual deaths from small-pox to 622 in 1804, the previous average having been 2,018. Jenner spent his later years entirely at Berkeley, where he died very suddenly in 1823.