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
Statue of Edward Jenner, London to Trafalgar Square began. Statue of Edward Jenner, London A statue of Edward Jenner, the physician, scientist and pioneer of the world's first vaccine, is located in Kensington Gardens in London. A work of the sculptor William Calder Marshall, the bronze was originally unveiled by Albert, Prince Consort in Trafalgar Square on 17 May 1858, before being moved to its present location in 1862. It is a Grade II listed building. The statue depicts Jenner in a seated position with one hand holding papers and is upon a plinth of Portland stone with Jenner's surname inscribed on a front panel