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
1947 New York City smallpox outbreak died May 7, a week after receiving her vaccination. According to the Center for Disease Control, the rate for post-vaccination encephalitis following the smallpox vaccine is 3 to 12 per million, and the fatality rate is about 1 in a million. (Since this was the largest vaccination campaign ever, it is likely to have contributed substantially to the C.D.C.'s data and estimates.) Even President Harry S. Truman received a vaccination for a brief trip to give a speech in New York City to news reporters. There were two additional cases of smallpox transmitted in the New York City area at