Full name: Edward Jenner Born: 17th May 1749 Invention/Achievement: Smallpox Vaccine Date of introduction/Achievement: 14th May 1796 (First experimental inoculation)  Died: 26th January 1823

In the 18^th Century, smallpox was a prolific and deadly disease.  It was estimated that 60% of the population would catch smallpox and of these 20-30% would die.  Inoculation against the disease had been practised throughout history, but often carried terrible risks.  

Edward Jenner was a doctor with wide interests in medicine and science.  He was born in Berkley, Gloucestershire on 17^th May 1749, the son of the vicar of Berkley.  At 14 he was apprenticed to a local surgeon and later to a surgeon at St George's Hospital, London.  

On qualifying in 1772 he returned to Berkley, where he became a successful family doctor and surgeon.  With other doctors he formed the Fleece Medical Society, which met in the Fleece Inn, Rodborough to dine and read and discuss papers on medical matters.  

In 1788 he was elected a member of the Royal Society following his presentation of a groundbreaking paper on the life and habits of the cuckoo.  While practising as a doctor he became aware that milkmaids were reputed to be immune to smallpox, because of the milder form of cow pox they caught from the cows they milked.  

Jenner had been taught by his surgeon master to follow William Harvey's dictum: "Don't think, try", and on 14^th May 1796 he inoculated eight-year old James Phipps, the son of his gardener, with pus scraped from a blister on the hands of milkmaid Sarah Nelmes.  The boy suffered a fever but nothing worse.  

Later, in a procedure that would probably get him arrested today, he injected matter from a smallpox sufferer into the boy, who suffered no ill-effects.  Jenner submitted his findings to the Royal Society but was told he needed more proof.  Jenner therefore carried out more experiments on children (including his own 11-month old son) and finally published his paper in 1798.  

Despite opposition from the church and other doubters, Jenner repeated his experiments and proved the immunity of his subjects.  His ideas spread around the world and in 1979 smallpox was declared an eradicated disease by the World Health Organisation.  

Jenner died of a stroke on 26^th January 1823.