Cowpox to the mild form of smallpox and the observation that dairy farmers were immune from smallpox inspired the first smallpox vaccine, created and administered by English physician Edward Jenner. The word “vaccination,” coined by Jenner in 1796, is derived from the Latin root "vaccinus", meaning of or from the cow. Once vaccinated, a patient develops antibodies that make them immune to cowpox, but they also develop immunity to the smallpox virus, or "Variola virus". The cowpox vaccinations and later incarnations proved so successful that in 1980, the World Health Organization announced that smallpox was the first disease to be eradicated
1978 smallpox outbreak in the United Kingdom police photographer she joined the University of Birmingham Medical School, where she was employed as a medical photographer in the Anatomy Department. Parker often worked in a darkroom above a laboratory where research on smallpox viruses was being conducted. Smallpox is an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants named "Variola major" and "Variola minor". The last naturally occurring infection was of "Variola minor" in Somalia in 1977. At the time of Parker's death, a laboratory at University of Birmingham Medical School was conducting research on variants of smallpox virus known as "whitepox viruses", which