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
History of smallpox 15 days in prison. This door-to-door program was met by some resistance as some individuals feared the vaccines to be unsafe and ineffective. Others felt compulsory vaccination in itself was a problem that violated an individual's civil liberties. This program of compulsory vaccination eventually led to the famous Jacobson v. Massachusetts case. The case was the result of a Cambridge resident's refusal to be vaccinated. Henning Jacobsen, a Swedish immigrant, refused vaccination out of fear it would cause him illness. He claimed a previous smallpox vaccine had made him sick as a child. Rather than pay the five dollar fine,