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
Edward Jenner of nestling birds in general." Jenner's nephew assisted in the study. He was born on 30 June 1737. Jenner's understanding of the cuckoo's behaviour was not entirely believed until the artist Jemima Blackburn, a keen observer of bird life, saw a blind nestling pushing out a host's egg. Her description and illustration of this were enough to convince Charles Darwin to revise a later edition of "On the Origin of Species". Jenner married Catherine Kingscote (died 1815 from tuberculosis) in March 1788. He might have met her while he and other fellows were experimenting with balloons. Jenner's trial balloon descended