How Jenner Became Interested in Curing Smallpox

The subject of smallpox was mentioned, upon which she observed, “I cannot take that disease, for I have had the cowpox.” This was sufficient to excite the attention of Jenner, and the incident never escaped his recollection.

Continuing Jenner Introduces Vaccination,
our selection from Medical Portrait Gallery by Sir Thomas J. Pettigrew published in 1838. The selection is presented in four easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Jenner Introduces Vaccination.

Time: 1798
Place: Berkeley, Gloustershire

Jenner had nearly passed half a century before he made known to the world his experiments and investigations relative to the vaccine disease. His first successful vaccination was made May 14, 1769. His ardor from an early period had been noticed, and it took its rise from the following accidental circumstance. While a pupil with Mr. Ludlow, a young countrywoman applied for advice. The subject of smallpox was mentioned, upon which she observed, “I cannot take that disease, for I have had the cowpox.” This was sufficient to excite the attention of Jenner, and the incident never escaped his recollection. It is easier to conceive than to express the emotions which would naturally spring from reflection on such a subject; his benevolent feelings were at once aroused to full activity; he pictured to himself all the horrors of that pestilential and most loathsome disease, disfiguring Nature’s greatest work, slaying thousands upon thousands, and he was yet sufficiently young to recollect the severity of discipline to which he had himself submitted in the process preparatory to the practice of inoculation, which, to use his own words, in that day was no less than that of “bleeding till the blood was thin; purging till the body was wasted to a skeleton; and starving on vegetable diet to keep it so.”

The patience manifested by Jenner in the prosecution of his inquiry into the cowpox, the scrutiny to which he subjected every appearance that presented itself, and the fortitude with which he withstood every untoward circumstance entitle him to all praise and show forth his great capabilities for conducting a philosophical investigation. He divested the subject of all its difficulties and obscurities, and gave to “vague, inapplicable and useless rumor the certainty and precision of scientific knowledge.” The extent of his anticipations upon this truly momentous subject do not appear to have been fully stated until 1780, ten years subsequent to his mention of it to John Hunter. He then confidentially disclosed to his intimate friend, Edward Gardner — who gave evidence upon the subject before the committee of the House of Commons — the opinions he entertained upon the natural history of the cowpox; dated its origin from the diseased heel of a horse; alluded to the different diseases with which the hands of the milkers became affected from handling the infected cows; distinguished that which was calculated to afford security against the smallpox; and divulged the hope he entertained of being able finally to eradicate that disease from the face of the globe. Doctor Baron has recorded the remarkable words with which this important communication was made:

I have entrusted a most important matter to you, which I firmly believe will prove of essential benefit to the human race. I know you, and should not wish what I have stated to be brought into conversation; for should anything untoward turn up in my experiments I should be made, particularly by my medical brethren, the subject of ridicule — for I am the mark they all shoot at.”

Jenner’s reasons for concealment did not arise from any selfish or unworthy motive. The publicity he had always given to the subject and the efforts he had made among his professional associates to pursue the inquiry exclude the possibility of entertaining such a suspicion. It arose from a dread of disappointment and the fear of failure should the matter be brought forward in a state other than that of a maturity sufficient to carry conviction immediately upon its promulgation. In the course of his researches he was led to conclude that swinepox, as well as cowpox, was only a variety of smallpox. He inoculated his eldest son with the matter of swinepox and produced a disease similar to a very mild smallpox. After this, the inoculation of variolous matter would produce no effect.

He ascertained that cowpox, as it was commonly termed by the milkers, would frequently fail in effecting a security against the smallpox. This led him to inquire more particularly into the variety of spontaneous eruptions to which the teats of the cow were liable, and to discriminate the different kinds of sores produced by them on the hands of the milkers, and to establish the character of those which possessed a specific power over the constitution, and those which had no such efficacy. He found that instances occurred in which the true cowpox failed in preventing smallpox; but nothing daunted by this apparently fatal discovery he set about ascertaining the causes of this deviation. He found the specific virtues of the virus to have been lost or deteriorated so that it was rendered capable only of producing a local affection and had no influence whatever upon the constitution; and by the greatest ingenuity and patience of observation of the analogies drawn from the virus of smallpox, aided by his knowledge of the laws of the animal economy, he discovered that it was only in a certain state of the vesicle that the virus was capable of affording its protecting agency, and that when taken under other conditions, or at other periods, it could produce a local disease, yet that it was not able to manifest any constitutional effect, or afford immunity from the invasions of the smallpox.

On May 14, 1796, Jenner inserted lymph taken from the hand of Sarah Nelmes who was infected with cowpox, into the arm of James Phipps, a healthy boy about eight years of age. This is the first instance of regular inoculation of the vaccine disease by Jenner. The boy went through the disorder, and on July 1st following he had the matter of smallpox introduced into his arm, but no effect followed. Jenner had not before seen the cowpox but as presented on the hands of the milkers, nor had it been transmitted from one human being to another. He was struck with its great resemblance to the smallpox pustule. The success of this case must necessarily have operated powerfully upon him, and have urged him to continue the research with increased energy.

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