Jenner, Edward

(1749-1823)

   Born at Berkeley, Gloucestershire, the son of a clergyman, he became famous as the surgeon who discovered vaccination for smallpox in 1796. He was educated at a grammar school, then for eight years, from the age of 13, he was apprenticed to a surgeon. From 1770 to 1773 he was a pupil of the brilliant surgeon John Hunter at St. George's Hospital, London. It was from Hunter that he received advice to the effect that thinking or speculating should not replace experiment. Jenner was a countryman at heart who enjoyed all things of nature, joining in local events, playing the violin and singing. He observed that people infected with cowpox did not catch smallpox, and from his experiments he wrote a slender book entitled An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae (1798) and many other medical treatises. Vaccination rapidly proved its value and the procedure spread quickly around the world. The Edward Jenner Institute for Vaccine Research is based at Compton, Newbury, Berkshire. He died at Berkeley. Only two of Jenner's poems are recorded: "Sent to a Patient, with the Present of a Couple of Ducks," "Signs of Rain."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Best Loved Poems of the American People. Hazel Felleman, ed. Doubleday, 1936. The Faber Book of Useful Verse. Simon Brett, ed. Faber and Faber, 1981.