Variolation shortly after variolation began to outweigh the benefits of the procedure. From the 1760s, a number of individuals, including John Fewster, Peter Plett, Benjamin Jesty, and particularly Edward Jenner, were interested in the use of material from cowpox, an animal infection, to protect against smallpox. In 1796, Jenner vaccinated James Phipps, did more vaccinations in 1798, and was the first to publish evidence that cowpox protected against smallpox, was safer than variolation, and that his vaccine could be maintained by arm-to-arm transfer. The use of variolation soon began to decline as the smallpox vaccine became widely used and its benefits
1978 smallpox outbreak in the United Kingdom at the Regional Virus Laboratory, which was in East Birmingham Hospital). Parker died of smallpox at Catherine-de-Barnes on 11 September 1978. Special disease control measures had to be put into place for Parker's funeral. Ron Fleet from Sheldon, who at the time of Parker's death worked for Solihull funeral director Bastocks and later for the BBC at Pebble Mill, recalled that he was told that authorities would not allow the body to be stored in a fridge in case the virus managed to multiply: Parker's mother also contracted smallpox, on 7 September, despite being vaccinated against the disease on 24