Smallpox vaccine Smallpox vaccine Smallpox vaccine, the first successful vaccine to be developed, was introduced by Edward Jenner in 1796. He followed up his observation that milkmaids who had previously caught cowpox did not later catch smallpox by showing that inoculated cowpox protected against inoculated smallpox. Dryvax is a freeze-dried calf lymph smallpox vaccine. It is the world's oldest smallpox vaccine, created in the late 19th century by American Home Products, a predecessor of Wyeth. By the 1940s, Wyeth was the leading US manufacturer of the vaccine and the only manufacturer by the 1960s. After world health authorities declared smallpox had been
Mozart and smallpox named Doutrepout, then brought vaccination to Mozart's native city of Salzburg. According to Halliwell, "popular resistance was fierce," and both the government and the Roman Catholic Church (previously an opponent) took stern measures to promote vaccination. The first relative of Mozart's known to have been vaccinated was Johanna Berchtold von Sonnenberg, called "Jeannette" (1789–1805), Nannerl's youngest child; she was vaccinated during the 1802 campaign in Salzburg. With vaccination, great progress was made in reducing incidence of the disease, and it was eventually confirmed as eradicated in 1979. Mozart and smallpox In 1767, the 11-year-old composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was struck