19 May: Edward Jenner

Born this date in 1749 was Edward Jenner, developer of the smallpox vaccine. 10 things you might not know about the man and his work:

1. Edward Jenner was born in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, the son of the local vicar and the eighth of nine children. In those days, smallpox was a significant killer, especially of children. While they didn't have vaccines, they used a method of inoculation called variolation which was basically exposing people to pus from a smallpox patient in the hope they'd catch a mild form of the disease and become immune. Needless to say, it didn't always work. As a child, Jenner was variolated himself and suffered a bad reaction which affected his health for life.
2. He started his medical training at 14, when he was apprenticed to a local surgeon named Daniel Ludlow, and at 21 went to London for further training under surgeon John Hunter at St George's Hospital. In 1772, he returned to Berkeley and spent most the rest of his career as a doctor there.
3. He was intrigued by local folklore which said that dairymaids were immune to smallpox because they commonly caught a disease called cowpox while milking infected Cows. When a dairymaid came to see him about a rash on her hand, and told him that her cow, Blossom, had recently had cowpox, he saw it as an opportunity to test the theory out.
4. James Phipps, his gardener's eight year old son was the first test subject. Jenner infected him with cowpox with samples taken from Sarah's hand. Sure enough, he got mildly ill, and quickly recovered. Then came the risky bit – proving that James was now immune to smallpox by variolating him. Jenner tested this several times and was confident enough in his theory to try it out on his own son, aged 11 months.
5. It took a while to get his work accepted. Doctors in cities who wanted to test the method had to obtain their cowpox samples from Jenner and have them transported and handled by people involved with variolation which often resulted in them becoming contaminated with actual smallpox. There were also doctors who opposed the whole thing because they were making Money out of variolation (things don't change much). The results of Jenner's work didn't get published until 1798. He is also the one who coined the word "vaccination" from the Latin 'vacca' for cow.
6. Further proof that things don't change much: there were anti-vaxxers in Jenner's time, too. They didn't like the idea of being injected with material from cows saying that they would not be treated with substances originating from God's lowlier creatures, especially diseased ones. Satirical cartoons of the time showed people sprouting cows' heads after being vaccinated and when the vaccinations were made compulsory, people organised protest marches to defend their freedom of choice. Jenner got the last laugh, though. In 1821, he was appointed physician extraordinary to King George IV, and was also made mayor of Berkeley and justice of the peace, and became known as "the father of immunology". His work is said to have "saved more lives than the work of any other human". He was granted freedom of several cities, including London, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin. Societies and universities around the world gave him honorary degrees and membership. He also received a special medal from Napoleon in 1804, the gift of a ring by the Empress of Russia and a string and belt of Wampum beads and a certificate of gratitude from North American Indian Chiefs. That said, he spent so much time supplying cowpox material to doctors all over the world and answering their questions that he called himself 'the Vaccine Clerk to the World'.
7. He had lots of interests outside of medicine, including fossil collecting, and horticulture. It's thought he met his wife, Catherine Kingscote, while experimenting with balloons. His balloon landed in her father's land.
8. He was also quite influential in ornithology. The prevailing belief of his time was that when a Cuckoo laid its eggs in another bird's nest, the adult cuckoo would push the other eggs out. It was Jenner who observed that it was the cuckoo hatchlings which dispatched the host's eggs and chicks. As with his vaccination work, he found it tricky to convince people until a keen bird watcher and artist called Jemima Blackburn produced a drawing of a baby cuckoo doing it. Her description and illustration convinced Charles Darwin himself to revise a later edition of On the Origin of Species. Towards the end of his life, Jenner also presented a paper on bird migration to the Royal Society.
9. In terms of religion, Jenner was a Christian. While not fanatical, he was quite spiritual and fond of the Bible. He wrote, "I am not surprised that men are not grateful to me; but I wonder that they are not grateful to God for the good which He has made me the instrument of conveying to my fellow creatures".
10. He died from a stroke on 26 January 1823, aged 73. Statues of him were erected in Trafalgar Square, London (although the statue has since been moved to Kensington Gardens. The house he lived in is now a museum. Among the exhibits are the horns of Blossom the cow. He has an Asteroid named after him, 5168 Jenner, and a scientist character in the TV show The Walking Dead is named Edwin Jenner in his honour.

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