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Ambroise Paré

Edward Jenner

 Edward Jenner was born in born 1749. He was a country doctor in Gloucestershire.

Oil painting of Edward Jenner, born 1749
Edward Jenner, Born 1749

In the 1700s smallpox was one of the deadliest diseases - in 1751, over 23,500 people died of smallpox in London alone. At the time, the only way to prevent smallpox was inoculation. It involved making a cut in a patient’s arm and soaking it in pus taken from a swelling of somebody who already had a mild form of smallpox. This was promoted in Britain by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who learned about it in Turkey. Inoculation was successful in preventing the disease but meant patients had to experience smallpox before they could become immune – some died as a result.

Edward Jenner heard that milkmaids didn’t get smallpox, but they caught the much milder cowpox. Using careful scientific methods Jenner investigated whether it was true that people who had had cowpox didn’t get smallpox.

In 1796 Jenner injected a small boy, James Phipps, with pus from the sores of Sarah Nelmes, a milkmaid with cowpox. Jenner then infected him with smallpox. James didn’t catch the disease.

Jenner published his findings in 1798. He coined the term vaccination using the Latin word of cow, vacca.

Drawing of infection of milkmaid Sarah Nelmes as part of Jenner’s experiment into vaccination for smallpox
Drawing of Cowpox Infected Arm

Jenner faced some opposition to his vaccine. Many people were worried about giving themselves a disease from cows. Some doctors who gave the older type of inoculation saw it as a threat to their livelihood. One doctor, William Woodville, claimed that Jenner’s vaccination worked little better than inoculation, after several smallpox deaths occurred at his hospital. 

Despite this opposition, Jenner’s discovery got the approval of parliament. In 1802 they gave Jenner £10,000 to open a vaccination clinic and another £20,000 a few years later.

In 1840, vaccination against smallpox was made free for infants. When vaccination became compulsory in 1853, several groups were formed to campaign against it – they didn’t like the idea of the government telling them what to do.

The vaccine was a success – it contributed to a big fall in the number of smallpox cases in Britain.