Edward Jenner

Edward Jenner
Edward Jenner by James Northcote
Born	17 May 1749 Berkeley, Gloucestershire
Died	Berkeley, Gloucestershire
Residence	Berkeley, Gloucestershire
Nationality	English
Fields	Medicine/surgery, natural history
Alma mater	St George's, University of London University of St Andrews
Academic advisors	John Hunter
Known for	Smallpox vaccine; Vaccination

Edward Jenner, FRS (/ˈdʒɛnər/; 17 May 1749 – 26 January 1823) was an English physician and scientist who was the pioneer of smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine. He is often called "the father of immunology", and his work is said to have "saved more lives than the work of any other human".

He was also the first person to describe the brood parasitism of the cuckoo.

Early life

Memorial to Jenner in Gloucester Cathedral

Edward Anthony Jenner was born on 17 May 1749 (6 May Old Style) in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, as the eighth of nine children. His father, the Reverend Stephen Jenner, was the vicar of Berkeley, so Jenner received a strong basic education.

He went to school in Wotton-under-Edge and Cirencester. During this time, he was inoculated for smallpox, which had a lifelong effect upon his general health. At the age of 14, he was apprenticed for seven years to Mr Daniel Ludlow, a surgeon of Chipping Sodbury, South Gloucestershire, where he gained most of the experience needed to become a surgeon himself.

In 1770, Jenner became apprenticed in surgery and anatomy under surgeon John Hunter and others at St George's Hospital. William Osler records that Hunter gave Jenner William Harvey's advice, very famous in medical circles (and characteristic of the Age of Enlightenment), "Don't think; try." Hunter remained in correspondence with Jenner over natural history and proposed him for the Royal Society. Returning to his native countryside by 1773, Jenner became a successful family doctor and surgeon, practising on dedicated premises at Berkeley.

Jenner and others formed the Fleece Medical Society or Gloucestershire Medical Society, so called because it met in the parlour of the Fleece Inn, Rodborough (in Gloucestershire), meeting to dine together and read papers on medical subjects. Jenner contributed papers on angina pectoris, ophthalmia, and cardiac valvular disease and commented on cowpox. He also belonged to a similar society which met in Alveston, near Bristol.

He became a master mason 30 December 1802, in Lodge of Faith and Friendship #449. From 1812–1813, he served as worshipful master of Royal Berkeley Lodge of Faith and Friendship.

Zoology

Jenner was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1788, following his publication of a careful study of the previously misunderstood life of the nested cuckoo, a study that combined observation, experiment, and dissection.

Common cuckoo

His description of the newly hatched cuckoo, pushing its host's eggs and fledgling chicks out of the nest (contrary to existing belief that the adult cuckoo did it) was only confirmed in the 20th century, when photography became available. Having observed this behaviour, Jenner demonstrated an anatomical adaptation for it—the baby cuckoo has a depression in its back, not present after 12 days of life, that enables it to cup eggs and other chicks. The adult does not remain long enough in the area to perform this task. Jenner's findings were published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1788.

"The singularity of its shape is well adapted to these purposes; for, different from other newly hatched birds, its back from the scapula downwards is very broad, with a considerable depression in the middle. This depression seems formed by nature for the design of giving a more secure lodgement to the egg of the Hedge-sparrow, or its young one, when the young Cuckoo is employed in removing either of them from the nest. When it is about twelve days old, this cavity is quite filled up, and then the back assumes the shape of nestling birds in general."

Jenner's nephew assisted in the study. He was born on 30 June 1737.

Marriage and human medicine

A lecturer's certificate of attendance given to Jenner. He attended many lectures on chemistry, medicine and physics.

Jenner married Catharine Kingscote (died 1815 from tuberculosis) in March 1788. He might have met her while he and other fellows were experimenting with balloons. Jenner's trial balloon descended into Kingscote Park, Gloucestershire, owned by Anthony Kingscote, one of whose daughters was Catharine.

He earned his MD from the University of St Andrews in 1792. He is credited with advancing the understanding of angina pectoris. In his correspondence with Heberden, he wrote, "How much the heart must suffer from the coronary arteries not being able to perform their functions."

Invention of the vaccine

Edward Jenner Advising a Farmer to Vaccinate His Family. Oil painting by an English painter, c. 1910

Inoculation was already a standard practice, but involved serious risks. In 1721, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had imported variolation to Britain after having observed it in Istanbul, where her husband was the British ambassador. Voltaire, writing of this, estimates that at this time 60% of the population caught smallpox and 20% of the population died of it. Voltaire also states that the Circassians used the inoculation from times immemorial, and the custom may have been borrowed by the Turks from the Circassians.

English: The process above shows the steps taken by Edward Jenner to create vaccination. Edward Jenner, the father of vaccination, created the first vaccine for smallpox. He did this by inoculating James Phipps with cowpox, a similar virus of smallpox, to create immunity, unlike variolation, which used smallpox to create an immunity to itself.

By 1768, English physician John Fewster had realized that prior infection with cowpox rendered a person immune to smallpox.

In the years following 1770, at least five investigators in England and Germany (Sevel, Jensen, Jesty 1774, Rendell, Plett 1791) successfully tested a cowpox vaccine in humans against smallpox. For example, Dorset farmer Benjamin Jesty successfully vaccinated and presumably induced immunity with cowpox in his wife and two children during a smallpox epidemic in 1774, but it was not until Jenner's work some 20 years later that the procedure became widely understood. Indeed, Jenner may have been aware of Jesty's procedures and success. Noting the common observation that milkmaids were generally immune to smallpox, Jenner postulated that the pus in the blisters that milkmaids received from cowpox (a disease similar to smallpox, but much less virulent) protected them from smallpox.

On 14 May 1796, Jenner tested his hypothesis by inoculating James Phipps, an eight-year-old boy who was the son of Jenner's gardener. He scraped pus from cowpox blisters on the hands of Sarah Nelmes, a milkmaid who had caught cowpox from a cow called Blossom, whose hide now hangs on the wall of the St George's medical school library (now in Tooting). Phipps was the 17th case described in Jenner's first paper on vaccination.

Jenner inoculated Phipps in both arms that day, subsequently producing in Phipps a fever and some uneasiness, but no full-blown infection. Later, he injected Phipps with variolous material, the routine method of immunization at that time. No disease followed. The boy was later challenged with variolous material and again showed no sign of infection. Donald Hopkins has written, "Jenner's unique contribution was not that he inoculated a few persons with cowpox, but that he then proved [by subsequent challenges] that they were immune to smallpox. Moreover, he demonstrated that the protective cowpox pus could be effectively inoculated from person to person, not just directly from cattle. Jenner successfully tested his hypothesis on 23 additional subjects.

Jenner continued his research and reported it to the Royal Society, which did not publish the initial paper. After revisions and further investigations, he published his findings on the 23 cases. Some of his conclusions were correct, some erroneous; modern microbiological and microscopic methods would make his studies easier to reproduce. The medical establishment, cautious then as now, deliberated at length over his findings before accepting them. Eventually, vaccination was accepted, and in 1840, the British government banned variolation – the use of smallpox to induce immunity – and provided vaccination using cowpox free of charge. (See Vaccination acts). The success of his discovery soon spread around Europe and, for example, was used en masse in the Spanish Balmis Expedition, a three-year-long mission to the Americas, the Philippines, Macao, China, and Saint Helena Island led by Dr. Francisco Javier de Balmis with the aim of giving thousands the smallpox vaccine. The expedition was successful, and Jenner wrote, "I don’t imagine the annals of history furnish an example of philanthropy so noble, so extensive as this."

1802 caricature of Jenner vaccinating patients who feared it would make them sprout cowlike appendages.

Jenner's continuing work on vaccination prevented him from continuing his ordinary medical practice. He was supported by his colleagues and the King in petitioning Parliament, and was granted £10,000 in 1802 for his work on vaccination. In 1807, he was granted another £20,000 after the Royal College of Physicians had confirmed the widespread efficacy of vaccination.

In 1803 in London, he became president of the Jennerian Society, concerned with promoting vaccination to eradicate smallpox. The Jennerian ceased operations in 1809. In 1808, with government aid, the National Vaccine Establishment was founded, but Jenner felt dishonoured by the men selected to run it and resigned his directorship. Jenner became a member of the Medical and Chirurgical Society on its founding in 1805 and presented a number of papers there. The society is now the Royal Society of Medicine. He was elected a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1802. In 1806, Jenner was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Returning to London in 1811, Jenner observed a significant number of cases of smallpox after vaccination. He found that in these cases the severity of the illness was notably diminished by previous vaccination. In 1821, he was appointed physician extraordinary to King George IV, a great national honour, and was also made mayor of Berkeley and justice of the peace. He continued to investigate natural history, and in 1823, the last year of his life, he presented his "Observations on the Migration of Birds" to the Royal Society.

hair cut from Jenner's body after his death

Jenner was found in a state of apoplexy on 25 January 1823, with his right side paralysed. He never fully recovered and eventually died of an apparent stroke, his second, on 26 January 1823, aged 73. He was survived by one son and one daughter, his elder son having died of tuberculosis at the age of 21.

His original report is in the Royal College of Surgeons (London)

Religious views

Neither fanatic nor lax, Jenner was a Christian who in his personal correspondence showed himself quite spiritual; he treasured the Bible. Some days before his death, he stated to a friend: "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."

Legacy

In 1979, the World Health Organization declared smallpox an eradicated disease. This was the result of coordinated public health efforts by many people, but vaccination was an essential component. And although the disease was declared eradicated, some pus samples still remain in laboratories in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States, and in State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology VECTOR in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia.

Jenner's vaccine laid the foundation for contemporary discoveries in immunology. In 2002, Jenner was named in the BBC's list of the 100 Greatest Britons following a UK-wide vote.

The lunar crater Jenner is named in his honour.

Dr. Jenner was recognized in popular TV show "The Walking Dead". In "TS-19", a CDC scientist is named Edwin Jenner.

Monuments and buildings

Dr Jenner's House, The Chantry, Church Lane, Berkeley, Gloucestershire, England

Bronze in Kensington Gardens, London

• Edward Jenner is buried in the Jenner family vault at the Church of St. Mary's, Berkeley.
• Jenner's house in the village of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, is now a small museum, housing, among other things, the horns of the cow, Blossom.
• A statue of Jenner by Robert William Sievier was erected in the nave of Gloucester Cathedral.
• Another statue was erected in Trafalgar Square and later moved to Kensington Gardens.
• Near the Gloucestershire village of Uley, Downham Hill is locally known as "Smallpox Hill" for its possible role in Jenner's studies of the disease.
• London's St. George's Hospital Medical School has a Jenner Pavilion, where his bust may be found.
• A group of villages in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, United States, was named in Jenner's honor by early 19th-century English settlers, including Jenners, Jenner Township, Jenner Crossroads, and Jennerstown, Pennsylvania
• Jennersville, Pennsylvania, is located in Chester County.
• A section at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital is known as the Edward Jenner Ward; it is where blood is drawn.
• A ward at Northwick Park Hospital is called Jenner Ward.
• Jenner Gardens at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, opposite one of the scientist's former offices, is a small garden and cemetery outside the walls of the upper town of Boulogne sur Mer, France.
• In The Henry Cort Community College, Fareham, Hampshire, a building is named after him.
• A street in Stoke Newington, north London: Jenner Road, N16

Publications

• 1798 An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolæ Vaccinæ
• 1799 Further Observations on the Variolæ Vaccinæ, or Cow-Pox.
• 1800 A Continuation of Facts and Observations relative to the Variolæ Vaccinæ 40pgs
• 1801 The Origin of the Vaccine Inoculation 12pgs

See also

• General practitioner
• History of science
• Inoculation

Further reading

• Papers at the Royal College of Physicians
• Baron, John M.D. F.R.S., "The Life of Edward Jenner MD LLD FRS", Henry Colburn, London, 1827.
• Baron, John, "The Life of Edward Jenner with illustrations of his doctrines and selections from his correspondence". Two volumes. London 1838.
• Edward Jenner, the man and his work. BMJ 1949 E Ashworth Underwood
• Fisher, Richard B., "Edward Jenner 1749–1823," Andre Deutsch, London, 1991.
• Ordnance Survey showing reference to Smallpox Hil: http://explore.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/os_routes/show/1539
• LeFanu WR. 1951 A bio-bibliography of Edward Jenner, 1749–1823. London (UK): Harvey and Blythe; 1951. p. 103–8.

External links

• Works by Edward Jenner at Project Gutenberg
• The Three Original Publications on Vaccination Against Smallpox
• A digitized copy of An inquiry into the causes and effects of the variola vaccine (1798), from the Posner Memorial Collection at Carnegie Mellon
• The Edward Jenner Museum & Old Cyder House Conference Centre
• The Evolution of Modern Medicine. Osler, W (FTP)
• Review of The Edward Jenner Museum on SoGlos.com