Jenner, Edward

Jenner, Edward, 1749–1823, English physician; pupil of John Hunter. His invaluable experiments beginning in 1796 with the vaccination of eight-year-old James Phipps proved that cowpox provided immunity against smallpox. His discovery was instrumental in ridding many areas of the world of a dread disease and laid the foundations of modern immunology as a science.

See W. R. Le Fanu, A Bio-bibliography of Edward Jenner, 1749–1823 (1951).