An English doctor and ‘The father of immunology’, Edward Jenner presented the gift of vaccination to the world.
In 1796, he performed his famous experiment on eight year old James Phipps. Jenner extracted[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”2,3,5″ ihc_mb_template=”1″ ] pus from a cowpox postulate and inserted it into an incision on the boy’s arm. He was experimenting his theory, speculated from folklores that milkmaids whom contracted cowpox didn’t contract smallpox, one of the greatest killers at the time.
This process was repeated for several days with a gradually increase in the amount of pus injected into the boy. Jenner then deliberately exposed Phipps to smallpox in which he was found to be immune to it. Jenner successfully proved that immunity against smallpox was achieved via inoculation of cowpox.
He called this novel method ‘Vaccination’ based on the Latin word vacca, meaning cow.
Jenner encountered prejudice and conservatism that dominated the medical world as he was publically humiliated when he brought his findings to the Royal Society in London.
However, his discovery was very successful that smallpox vaccination was made compulsory in England and Wales. He didn’t patent his discovery as it would’ve made vaccination more expensive and unavailable for many.
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