Edward Jenner

Edward Jenner was born in 1749, in Berkeley. He wanted to get rid of small pox for ever so he carried out a simple experiment, which turned out to change everyone's lives for the better.

Edward Jenner noticed that cows sometimes got a disease called cowpox. Because the milkmaids had to milk the cows, they often also caught cowpox…but it didn't seem to harm them. Edward Jenner was intrigued - milkmaids that had caught cowpox never seemed to catch the contagious and deadly smallpox, which thousands of people died from. Edward Jenner came up with a theory, that cowpox prevented people from getting smallpox. To test his theory, Edward Jenner needed to find someone who was young and who hadn't caught smallpox or cowpox before. He found a boy called James Phipps (aged 8) and explained his idea. Edward Jenner then took some pus from a milkmaid's cowpox and rubbed it into two small incisions on James's arm. Soon after, James became ill with cowpox but the symptoms didn't last long. 6 weeks later, Jenner took some pus from a smallpox victim and again put it into James's cuts. However, this time James didn't catch the disease. Cowpox was called vaccinia so he called his invention the vaccine.