Smallpox Great Britain it became the dominant form of smallpox, further reducing mortality rates. The English physician Edward Jenner demonstrated the effectiveness of cowpox to protect humans from smallpox in 1796, after which various attempts were made to eliminate smallpox on a regional scale. In Russia in 1796, the first child to receive this treatment was bestowed the name "Vaccinov" by Catherine the Great, and was educated at the expense of the nation. The introduction of the vaccine to the New World took place in Trinity, Newfoundland in 1800 by Dr. John Clinch, boyhood friend and medical colleague of Jenner. As
1978 smallpox outbreak in the United Kingdom free of smallpox on 16 October 1978. At the time of the outbreak, the WHO had been about to certify that smallpox had been eradicated globally. It eventually did so in 1980. On 5 September 1978, Parker's 71-year-old father, Frederick Witcomb, of Myrtle Avenue, Kings Heath, died while in quarantine at Catherine-de-Barnes Hospital. He appeared to have died following a cardiac arrest when visiting his daughter. No post-mortem was carried out on his body because of the risk of smallpox infection. On 6 September 1978, Henry Bedson, then Head of the Microbiology Department at the University of Birmingham Medical School