Biography Essay on Edward Jenner

Edward Jenner, born May 1749, was not just your ordinary doctor. At the age of five, Jenner had already lost both parents, and it is while living with his elder brother that he developed a liking for nature and science. Jenners strong interest in those two fields would later continue throughout his life leading him to discover the vaccine for smallpox. Jenner started working for George Harwicke in the year 1764, and it is during this time that he got to acquire so much skill about surgical and medical practice (Willis, 1997). At 21 years Jenner traveled to London where he enrolled as a student of John Hunter after completing his apprenticeship with George Harwicke.

Edward worked with John for two years, and it is this experience that heightened Jenners interest and curiosity in natural science. John Hunter, among the most well-known surgeons in England, worked at St. Georges Hospital, London and was a respected anatomist, biologist, and experimental scientist (Baxby, 1979). The two became great of friends; a friendship which lasted until 1793 when John Hunter died. It is while working with Hunter in England that Jenner realized big advancements in clinical surgery (Barquet & Domingo, 1997). Edward Jenner came up with an improved formula in the process of preparing tartar emetic; medicine also known as potassium antimony tartrate.

After completing his studies with John Hunter in 1773, Jenner went back to Berkeley to venture into medicine. While practicing medicine in Berkeley, he enjoyed a lot of success because of his skill. He was equally popular and capable because of the training he had gone through in the hands of John Hunter combined with his natural interest in the field. While practicing medicine in his hometown, he became a member of two medical associations which dealt mainly with promoting medical knowledge locally. As an individual, he occasionally wrote medical papers.

Among the most feared disease at this time was smallpox. It was very common in young children since it was communicable and around 33% of people who contacted smallpox succumbed. Neither a means of treating this menace was known nor a vaccine that could help prevent the killer disease. For a long time, Jenner would hear stories of how dairymaids had natural protection from smallpox after contacting cowpox from the cows that had cowpox. Jenner thought about the whole situation and came to a conclusion that cowpox could be transmitted from cow to human and from human to human. Best of all, Jenner concluded that cowpox protected humans against smallpox.

In 1796 in May, Sarah Nelms, a dairymaid came to Jenner for consultations with a rash on her hand. Jenner diagnosed Nelms with cowpox, and she confirmed that indeed a cow that she was looking after had in the recent past suffered from cowpox. It was then that he realized this was his best chance to establish whether or not cowpox had any protective properties against smallpox. He decided he would do this on a person who had not contacted either cowpox or smallpox yet. He scratched the arm of eight-year-old James Phipps, his gardeners son and put in the scratches substance acquired from the rashes on the hands of Nelms. Sure enough, James contacted the disease but felt well a few days later (Lakhani, 1992).

It was then that Jenner ascertained that cowpox was transferable from cow to man and from man to man. The next big task was to ascertain whether James was assured of not getting smallpox after his encounter with cowpox. In July, Jenner deliberately infected the young boy with smallpox. Much to his relief, the young boy did contact the disease just like Jenner had looked forward to. Even when the young boys immunity was tested later, he did not contact smallpox.

After this experiment, Jenner did many others of this kind and wrote a book with all the research and findings of smallpox titled 'An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae; a Disease Discovered in some of the Western Counties of England, Particularly Gloucestershire, and Known by the Name of The Cow Pox'. He continued to do further experiments which would ascertain without a doubt that indeed cowpox could protect against smallpox (Jenner, 1800). The results of any of these experiments were often made public. Jenner had come up with a 100% safe way of immunizing people against the killer disease that was smallpox. In his words Jenner said;

The joy I felt as the prospect before me of being the instrument destined to take away from the world one of its greatest calamities (smallpox) was so excessive that I found myself in a kind of reverie. Edward Jenner

Jenner would call his discovery vaccination a Latin word coined from the words vacca Latin for cow and vaccinia Latin for cowpox (Riedel, 2005). Vaccination, especially for smallpox would later spread countrywide and later worldwide which made him the pioneer of the vaccination of deadly smallpox and what can be called the father of immunology. Jenner became even popular than before and eventually stopped general practice to concentrate more on research and advising more on developments in his vaccine. For the rest of his life, Jenner supplied cowpox matter to doctors around the globe as well as advising on other scientific matters related to smallpox and cowpox.

The British Government would eventually award him 10,000 pounds in 1802 and a subsequent 20,000 pounds in 1807 to compensate him for the time he spent out of general practice. He received honorary degrees and membership from Universities worldwide and the freedom of some cities like Dublin, London, and Glasgow among others. Statutes in his honor were erected as far a Tokyo and London. His worldwide achievement, however, did not go without any criticism. He was often ridiculed, and a cartoon was drawn depicting people with cow heads after they had received the cowpox vaccination

That notwithstanding, Edward Jenner was a hero. In 1980, The World Health Organization proclaimed: Smallpox is Dead! something that Jenner had foreseen in the year 1801. Through Jenners historical discovery, smallpox, a disease among the most feared diseases of all time, had been eradicated. It has been established that the work of vaccination he started back in the town of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, has been able to save a lot of human lives: more than the work of any other person.

Edward Jenner was a humble man; he did not seek to make himself rich from his historical discovery despite receiving worldwide accolades. He dedicated his time to the vaccination of smallpox almost forgetting his general practice and his personal affairs. Jenners reputation grew to the extent of being appointed Justice of the peace by King George IV. In 1823, January 25th, Edward Jenner suffered a stroke which he never recovered. He succumbed to the stroke at the age of 74.

References

Barquet, N., & Domingo, P. (1997). Smallpox: the triumph over the most terrible of the ministers of death. Annals of internal medicine, 127(8_Part_1), 635-642.Baxby, D. (1979). Edward Jenner, William Woodville, and the origins of vaccinia virus. Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences, 34(2), 134-162.Jenner, E. (1800). An inquiry into the causes and effects of the variolae vaccinae, a disease discovered in some of the western counties of England, particularly Gloucestershire, and known by the name of the cow pox. author.

Lakhani, S. (1992). Early clinical pathologists: Edward Jenner (1749-1823). Journal of clinical pathology, 45(9), 756.Riedel, S. (2005, January). Edward Jenner and the history of smallpox and vaccination. In Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings (Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 21-25). Taylor & Francis.Willis, N. J. (1997). Edward Jenner and the eradication of smallpox. Scottish medical journal, 42(4), 118-121.