Edward Jenner

Jenner, Edward (1749–1823), English physician, pioneer of vaccination. He took note of the country saying that dairy-maids who had had cowpox would not contract smallpox, and this led him, in 1796, to inoculate a boy, James Phipps, with cowpox. When the procedure made the boy immune to smallpox, the modern science of immunology was born.

See also: Immunization; Vaccination.