Edward Jenner Edward Jenner Edward Jenner, FRS FRCPE (17 May 1749 – 26 January 1823) was an English physician and scientist who was the pioneer of smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine. The terms "vaccine" and "vaccination" are derived from "Variolae vaccinae" (smallpox of the cow), the term devised by Jenner to denote cowpox. He used it in 1796 in the long title of his "Inquiry into the Variolae vaccinae known as the Cow Pox", in which he described the protective effect of cowpox against smallpox. Jenner is often called "the father of immunology", and his work is said to have "saved
Edward Jenner experience needed to become a surgeon himself. In 1770, Jenner became apprenticed in surgery and anatomy under surgeon John Hunter and others at St George's Hospital. William Osler records that Hunter gave Jenner William Harvey's advice, well-known in medical circles (and characteristic of the Age of Enlightenment), "Don't think; try." Hunter remained in correspondence with Jenner over natural history and proposed him for the Royal Society. Returning to his native countryside by 1773, Jenner became a successful family doctor and surgeon, practising on dedicated premises at Berkeley. Jenner and others formed the Fleece Medical Society or Gloucestershire Medical Society, so