JENNER'S DISCOVERY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 170, 20 July 1935, Page 7 (Supplement)

JENNER'S DISCOVERY.

DAIRYMAID'S CHANCE WORD. The clianee remark of a young dairymaid made in the presence of Edward Jenner, son of the vicar of Berkley, was destined to have far-reaching, results in saving mankind from a disease that fifty years before had swept away two millions lives in a single year. At the time Edward Jenner was apprenticed to a surgeon at Sudsbury, a little village near Bristol, and it was here that he was called upon to give medical advice to a young dairymaid. Having mentioned in her hearing the subject of smallpox, | she remarked that she could not take that disease as she had already had cowpox. This remark interested the young doctor, and upon inquiry lie learned that it was a popular belief in that part of the country, though it had been discredited by the medical profession. Some time later, when lie settled down to a country practice of his own. he noticed that among those he was called upon to inoculate many resisted every effort to give them smallpox. These patients, he found, had been accustomed to milking cows, and had suffered from the disease then known as smallpox. Still dctcr•mined to solve the problem he pursued his inquiries with renewed zest. Among the members of his own profession, however, he had few sympathisers. Most persons regarded the idea of communicating to human beings a disease common to animals as revolting. After experiments he formed the idea that it might be practicable to propagate the disease by inoculation, first from the cow and afterwards from one human being to another. For a considerable time he awaited an opportunity of putting his theory to the test. The first person ever vaccinated was an eight-year-old boy named Pliipps, in whose arm Jenner inserted some of the virus taken from the arm of a young woman who had become infected while milking a cow. Some months later Jenner returned to inoculate the boy. To his great joy he found that no effect could be produced—it was absolutely impossible to communicate smallpox to his patient.

In 1759 Jenner published an account of his discovery, and in spite of ridicule and opposition from many members of the medical profession, and denunciations from ignorant people, it attracted a lot of attention. In 1802, after having thrown open his secret to the whole world, he received from Parliament a vote of £10,000.