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
Caitlyn Jenner Lou Retton succeeded Jenner in 1984. On November 22, 1977, Jenner went to San Francisco to refute charges filed by San Francisco district attorney Joseph Freitas that General Mills—the maker of Wheaties—had engaged in deceptive advertising in its campaign that featured Jenner. Jenner liked Wheaties and ate the breakfast cereal two or three times a week, which supported the advertising campaign's claims. Two days later, Freitas withdrew the suit, saying that it was "a case of overzealousness" on the part of his staff. When Jenner came out as a trans woman in 2015, General Mills stated that: "Bruce Jenner continues