Edward Jenner

Edward Jenner, was an English physician and scientist who pioneered the concept of vaccines including creating the smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine. The terms vaccine and vaccination are derived from Variolae vaccinae, the term devised by Jenner to denote cowpox. He used it in 1798 in the long title of his Inquiry into the Variolae vaccinae known as the Cow Pox, in which he described the protective effect of cowpox against smallpox. In the West, Jenner is often called "the father of immunology", and his work is said to have "saved more lives than the work of any other human". In Jenner's time, smallpox killed around 10% of the population, with the number as high as 20% in towns and cities where infection spread more easily. In 1821, he was appointed physician extraordinary to King George IV, and was also made mayor of Berkeley and justice of the peace.

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On this day in 1796, the physician Edward Jenner administered an inoculation derived from cowpox pus into the arm of 8-year-old James Phipps. Jenner's hypothesis that exposure to the relatively mild cowpox virus conferred immunity against smallpox helped develop the modern-day vaccine.