Smallpox 1718. In 1721, Cotton Mather and colleagues provoked controversy in Boston by inoculating hundreds. In 1796, Edward Jenner, a doctor in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, rural England, discovered that immunity to smallpox could be produced by inoculating a person with material from a cowpox lesion. Cowpox is a poxvirus in the same family as variola. Jenner called the material used for inoculation vaccine, from the root word "vacca", which is Latin for cow. The procedure was much safer than variolation, and did not involve a risk of smallpox transmission. Vaccination to prevent smallpox was soon practiced all over the world. During the
Caleb Jenner Caleb Jenner Caleb Joshua Jenner (9 December 1830 – 27 June 1890) was a politician in colonial Victoria (Australia), member of the Victorian Legislative Council. Jenner was born in Alfriston, Sussex, England, the son of Thomas Jenner and his wife Sarah, "née" Ralf. He came to Victoria in 1850, and engaged in commercial pursuits at Geelong. Jenner held the office of president of the first reform league, established for the purpose of protecting native Industries. Jenner represented the South Western Province in the Legislative Council for more than twenty years, being returned in March 1863 in opposition to Charles Griffith,