70 JENNER. 



We now come to the important epoch in the life of this eminenl 

 man. On the 14th of May, 1796 (commemorated in Berlin as an 

 annual festival), he made his first successful vaccination on a boy 

 of the name of Phipps, eight years old, and announced the event in 

 a letter to a friend named Gardner, in the following words : " But 

 listen to the most delightful part of my story. The boy has 

 since been inoculated for the small-pox, which, as I ventured to 

 predict, produced no effect. I shall now pursue my experiments 

 with redoubled ardour." In the year 1798 he made public the 

 result of his continued observations and experiments, published 

 during this year his work entitled an l Inquiry into the Causes and 

 Effects of the Varioloe Vaccinoe,' and henceforth the imperishable 

 name of Jenner was to be identified with vaccination. Although 

 Jenner announced his discovery thus late in life, his attention had 

 been drawn forcibly towards the subject when quite a youth, while 

 pursuing his professional education in the house of his master at 

 Sudbury. During that time, a young countrywoman having come 

 to seek advice, the subject of small-pox was mentioned in her 

 presence ; she immediately observed, " I cannot take that, for I 

 have had the cow-pox." This incident rivetted the attention of 

 Jenner, and he resolved to let no opportunity escape of procuring 

 knowledge upon so interesting a subject. When, in 1770, he was 

 prosecuting his studies in London, he mentioned the matter to 

 Hunter, who told him not to think but try, and above all to be 

 patient and accurate. Hunter, however, from the great number of 

 original and important pursuits, which fully engrossed his attention, 

 was never so greatly impressed, as Jenner, with the probable con- 

 sequences of the successful elucidation of the subject of cow-pox ; 

 while other surgeons and scientific men, to whom the subject was 

 mentioned, ridiculed the idea ; and even when Jenner had drawn up 

 his ' Inquiry,' he was recommended not to send it to the Koyal 

 Society, lest it should injure the scientific reputation which he had 

 formerly acquired with that body by his paper on the ' Natural 

 History of the Cuckoo.' Undeterred by this want of sympathy, 

 Jenner, during the time of his practice at Berkeley, patiently con- 

 tinued his investigations as to the nature of cow-pox, and, gradually 

 struggling through the difficulties which he had to encounter on 

 his way, eliminated the following facts : that there were certain 

 people to whom it was impossible to give the small-pox by inocula- 

 tion, and that these had all had the cow-pox ; but that there were 

 also others who had had cow-pox, and who yet received small-pox. 

 This, after much labour, led him to the discovery that the cow was 

 subject to a variety of eruptions, of which one only had the power 

 of guarding from small-pox, and that this, the true cow-pox, as he 

 called it, could, at only one period of its course, produce, by inocu- 

 lation, such an influence upon the constitution as to render the 

 individual safe from further contagion. This was the basis upon 

 which the fundamental rules for the practice of vaccination were 



