Jenner
Important in Medicine because…
· Born in 1749 in Gloucestershire, he became a local doctor.
· From his rural life he knew milkmaids instead of catching the deadly smallpox, caught the much milder cowpox instead.
· He tested this country theory in 1796 using a small boy, James Phelps. He was injected with pus from the sores of a milkmaid called Sarah Nelmes who had cowpox. Later he was injected with smallpox. The boy did not catch smallpox. This was VACCINATION.
· Rewarded with grants by Parliament, who made the vaccination free for infants in 1840, and compulsory in 1853, helping to almost eradicated smallpox in Britain.