James Phipps James Phipps James Phipps (1788 – 25 April 1853) was the first person given the cowpox vaccine by Edward Jenner. Jenner knew of a local belief that dairy workers who had contracted a relatively mild infection called cowpox were immune to smallpox. Phipps was born in Berkeley parish in Gloucestershire to a poor, landless labourer working as Jenner's gardener. He was baptised in St Mary's parish church, Berkeley, when he was 4. On 14 May 1796 he was selected by Jenner, who took "a healthy boy, about eight years old for the purpose of inoculation for the Cow Pox". Jenner
Sir William Jenner, 1st Baronet Sir William Jenner, 1st Baronet Sir William Jenner, 1st Baronet, GCB, QHP, FRCP, FRS (30 January 1815 – 11 December 1898) was a significant English physician primarily known for having discovered the distinction between typhus and typhoid. Jenner was born at Chatham on 30 January 1815, and educated at University College London. He became a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (M.R.C.S.) in 1837, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (F.R.C.P.) in 1852, and in 1844 took the London M.D. In 1847 he began at the London Fever Hospital investigations into cases of continued fever