Edward Jenner Research Paper

The “father of immunization” Edward Jenner was well-known for his creativity and wisdom. As a large contributor of revolutionizing the face of medicine, Jenner’s experiment with a dangerous and deadly infection transformed into prevention at its finest. The health care industry between the seventeen to eighteen hundreds lacked prevention methods which could have saved thousands of lives. It was during this time infections were considered a death sentence since the use of antibiotics were several years from development. According to Mhaske (2010), this was an age when infection was not understood. Edward Jenner’s development of a vaccine changed the fate of those who became infected.
Before becoming the father of immunization, Edward Jenner was a simple country kid with an interest in birds and collecting fossils. Edward was one of nine children born to his parents Reverend Stephen Jenner and wife Sarah. He was born in Berkeley, Gloucestershire and later in life came …show more content…
(Dr. Jenner's House, n.d.) In order to develop the vaccine for smallpox, Edward’s plan was to extract the cowpox virus and inject it directly into a subject to create immunity. “He came across a milkmaid, Sarah Nelmes, who had developed cowpox from milking a cow”. (Mhaske, 2010) Without pausing Edward collected the virus from Sarah’s hand. Edward debated with the idea of using the vaccine containing the cowpox virus into someone to induce immunity and in the spring of 1796 finally took the opportunity to test his theory on an 8 year old boy who had a cowpox lymph removed. The results of the injection were positive and the boy showed signs of improvement giving hope to Edward. “In 1798, Jenner published his work entitled An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae vaccine. A disease discovered in the Western Counties of England”. (Lakhani,