Jenner, EDWARD, the discoverer of vaccination, was born at Berkeley, in Gloucestershire, on the 17th of May 1749, and was the third son of the Rev. Stephen Jenner, vicar of the parish, and rector of Rockhampton. His schooling over, he was apprenticed to Mr Ludlow, an eminent surgeon at Sodbury, near Bristol; and in his twenty-first year went to London to prosecute his professional studies under the celebrated John Hunter (q.v.), in whose family he resided for two years. The influence of the master exerted a lasting effect on the pupil, who became an expert anatomist, a sound pathologist, a careful experimenter, and a good naturalist. In 1773 Jenner settled in his native place, where he soon acquired a large practice. In 1788 his well-known memoir, On the Natural History of the Cuckoo, appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Society. In 1792, the fatigues of general practice having become irksome to him, he resolved to confine himself to medicine, and with that view he obtained the degree of M.D. from St Andrews.
The discovery of the prophylactic power of vaccination, by which the name of Jenner has become immortalised, was the result of a prolonged series of observations and experiments. He was pursuing his professional education in the house of his master at Sodbury, when a young country-woman came to seek advice. The subject of smallpox being mentioned in her presence, she observed: 'I cannot take that disease, for I have had cow-pox.' This was before the year 1770. It was not till 1775 that, after his return to Gloucestershire, he had an opportunity of examining into the truth of the traditions respecting cow-pox; and in the month of May 1780, while riding with his friend Edward Gardner, on the road between Gloucester and Bristol, 'he went over the natural history of cow-pox; stated his opinion as to the origin of this affection from the heel of the horse [when suffering from the grease]; specified the different sorts of disease which attacked the milkers when they handled infected cows; dwelt upon that variety which afforded protection against smallpox; and with deep and anxious emotion mentioned his hope of being able to propagate that variety from one human being to another, till he had disseminated the practice all over the globe, to the total extinction of smallpox.' Many investigations delayed the actual discovery for no less than sixteen years, when at length the crowning experiment on James Phipps was made on the 14th of May 1796, and Jenner's task was virtually accomplished. This experiment was followed by many of the same kind; and in 1798 he published his first memoir, entitled An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolæ Vaccinæ. Although the evidence accumulated by Jenner seemed conclusive, yet the practice met with violent opposition until a year had passed, when upwards of seventy of the principal physicians and surgeons in London signed a declaration of their entire confidence in it. His discovery was soon promulgated throughout the civilised world. Honours were conferred upon him by foreign courts, and he was elected an honorary member of nearly all the learned societies of Europe, though not of the College of Physicians, which required him to pass an examination in classics. Parliament voted him in 1802 a grant of £10,000, and in 1807 a second grant of £20,000; and in the year 1858 a public statue in his honour was erected in London. His latter days were passed chiefly at Berkeley and Cheltenham, and were occupied in the dissemination and elucidation of his great discovery. He died of apoplexy at Berkeley, 26th January 1823. See his Life and Correspondence, by Dr J. Baron (2 vols. 1827-38; 2d ed. 1850); also the article VACCINATION.