Edward Jenner, a pupil of the celebrated John Hunter, born
May 17, 1749.
In his comments on the life of Edward Jenner, Adams, in "The
Healing Art," has graphically described his first efforts to
institute vaccination, as follows: "To the ravages of small-pox,
and the possibility of finding some preventive Jenner had long
given his attention. It is likely enough that his thoughts were
inclined in this direction by the remembrance of the sufferings
inflicted upon himself by the process of inoculation. Through six
weeks that process lingered. He was bled, purged, and put on a
low diet, until 'this barbarism of human veterinary practice' had
reduced him to a skeleton. He was then exposed to the contagion
of the small-pox. Happily, he had but a mild attack; yet the
disease itself and the inoculating operations, were probably the
causes of the excessive sensitiveness which afflicted him through
life.
"When Jenner was acting as a surgeon's articled pupil at Sudbury,
a young countrywoman applied to him for advice. In her presence
some chance allusion was made to the universal disease, on which
she remarked: 'I shall never take it, for I have had the
cow-pox.' The remark induced him to make inquiries; and he found
that a pustular eruption, derived from infection, appeared on the
hands of milkers, communicated from the teats of cows similarly
disordered; this eruption was regarded as a safeguard against
small-pox.
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