Vaccination is the administration of a weakened or related agent to produce immunity against a disease. Edward Jenner's 1796 demonstration that cowpox exposure protected against smallpox is the founding episode of the modern practice, though inoculation with live smallpox material, variolation, was practiced earlier in parts of Asia, the Ottoman Empire and Africa before Jenner's work. This atlas records what the historical record supports and is not medical advice.
Facts
Disputed
DiscovererEdward Jenner is credited with the 1796 cowpox demonstration that founded modern vaccination, though the underlying practice of deliberate inoculation against smallpox, variolation, was documented earlier in China, India, the Ottoman Empire and parts of Africa. 4 Jenner is credited with founding vaccination proper; the older practice of variolation it built on and eventually replaced has separate, earlier and geographically distributed origins that predate any single discoverer. Discovery Year Discovery Date Classification
Type/Classification FAQs
Was Edward Jenner the first person to protect people against smallpox by deliberate exposure?
Variolation came first; Jenner founded modern vaccination in 1796.
No. Inoculation with live smallpox material, called variolation, was practiced earlier in parts of Asia, the Ottoman Empire and Africa. Jenner's 1796 demonstration that cowpox exposure protected against smallpox is the founding episode of modern vaccination, because it used a weakened or related agent instead of the disease itself. This atlas records what the historical record supports and is not medical advice.
Connections
Associated With
Source The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of HumanityRoy Porter
Source The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of HumanityRoy Porter
Immunization is the standard example of primary prevention.
Source Wikipedia: Preventive Healthcare
Smallpox, Conditions Jenner's 1796 cowpox vaccination against smallpox is the founding discovery of vaccination as a method.
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Discovered By
Why this is disputed. Jenner's 1796 test on James Phipps is the standard credited origin of vaccination and the one this atlas's Vaccination entry is built around, but Jenner was not the first to test cowpox inoculation: English physician John Fewster recognized the cowpox-smallpox immunity connection by 1768, and farmer Benjamin Jesty successfully tested a cowpox vaccine on his own family in 1774, twenty-two years before Jenner. Jenner's distinction is the systematic scientific investigation, publication and advocacy that made the practice known and adopted, not priority of first attempt.
Source WikipediaWikipedia contributors
Additional Source Edward Jenner (Wikipedia)
Long-Form Articles
Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.entity description, Vaccination
Vaccination is the administration of a weakened or related agent to produce immunity against a disease.
- Associated With: Smallpox
View the Source 2. The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity
Roy Porter, W. W. Norton and Company, 1997
3. Wikipedia
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia Foundation
4. A History of Medicine
Lois N. Magner, CRC Press
Vaccination (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationCareer sectionQuote, Career section
In 1796, Edward Jenner, a doctor in Berkeley in Gloucestershire, England, tested a common theory that a person who had contracted cowpox would be immune from smallpox. To test the theory, he took cowpox vesicles from a milkmaid named Sarah Nelmes, with which he infected an eight-year-old boy named James Phipps.
Edward Jenner (Wikipedia)
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