Edward Jenner
English physician and scientistWikipedia
67
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20
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Search complete. 67 mentions across 20 episodes found for "Edward Jenner".
Sep 28, 2026
speaker_8NARRATOR
The employment of the inoculation of natural smallpox by the Greeks of Constantinople, where the custom had been long naturalized and practiced by old women instructed in the art, exercised a most important influence upon the West.
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But it remained for Edward Jenner to solve the problem.
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He demonstrated that a simple attack of mild, never fatal cowpox, deliberately acquired, would serve as a protection against the fatal smallpox.
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His discovery was the result of his genius for original investigation.
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On the 14th of May, 1796, vaccine matter was taken from the hand of a dairymaid and inserted into the arms of a healthy boy of eight.
speaker_8NARRATOR
He went through an attack of cowpox in regular fashion.
speaker_8NARRATOR
Then, two months later, Jenner inoculated him with real smallpox pus, but with no deleterious result.
speaker_8NARRATOR
In his very complete and explicit report, he says, The deviation of man from the state in which he was originally placed by nature seems to have proved to him a prolific source of diseases.
Laurel BristowHOST
This week on the show, we're setting sail on a course to educate you about the unbreakable bond between public health and those who commit their lives to the high seas.
Kevin BrownGUEST
Not long after Edward Jenner introduced the idea of vaccination against smallpox, the Royal Navy adopted it.
Kevin BrownGUEST
For example, in Menorca, they were using this vaccine to vaccinate local children.
Kevin BrownGUEST
If on an island you can control something like smallpox, it won't be passed on to the seamen.
33 MINS LATER
Kevin BrownGUEST
But there were also other things they were doing, like they were improving diet using malt.
Kevin BrownGUEST
There were lots of potable soups being produced and being licensed for use aboard ships approved by the Sick and Health Board.
Kevin BrownGUEST
of the navy so there were lots of things going on not long after edward jenner introduced the idea of vaccination against smallpox the royal navy adopted it very early from about eighteen hundred onwards Now, it wasn't all that easy to vaccinate in those days.
Kevin BrownGUEST
And it was a case of vaccinating the cowpox virus from person to person.
Jillian MichaelsHOST
Who doesn't remember red rum? Question four.
Jillian MichaelsHOST
Known as the father of immunology, who discovered a vaccine for smallpox? The answer is Edward Jenner.
Jillian MichaelsHOST
And if you got that one, I'm pretty darn impressed.
Jillian MichaelsHOST
Play, share, and listen.
Tracy V. WilsonHOST
And we've talked about smallpox a bit on the show before.
Tracy V. WilsonHOST
We had our episode on Edward Jenner and the smallpox vaccine, and how the v- vaccine was developed, and then Jenner's efforts to try to make it more widely available.
Tracy V. WilsonHOST
More recently, we did the episode on the Royal Philanthropic Vaccine Expedition, and that was all about Spain's efforts to transport the smallpox vaccine to the Americas, which required a chain of living human hosts.
Tracy V. WilsonHOST
We mentioned pretty briefly the eradication of smallpox in both of those episodes, but we have not gone into detail about how that happened.
Holly FreyHOST
Then, in the late 18th century, people started to make a connection between smallpox and another much milder disease that was called cowpox.
Holly FreyHOST
The smallpox and cowpox viruses are both in the genus Orthopoxvirus, and people who had contracted cowpox seemed immune to smallpox.
Holly FreyHOST
Several people, including Edward Jenner, tried deliberately exposing people to cowpox as a way to prevent smallpox.
Holly FreyHOST
Jenner called this vaccination, after the Latin word for cow.
speaker_6NARRATOR
The introduction of machinery into the manufacture of paper by Brian Donkin and others.
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The improvements in the printing press and invention of stereotype printing by Charles Earl Stanhope, the discovery of vaccination by Jenner, the introduction of gas into general use by Murdoch, and the construction, in a great measure, of the present system of canal communication by Jessop, Chapman, Telford, and Rennie.
speaker_6NARRATOR
During the same period of time were likewise living Count Rumford, Robert Brown, the botanist, William Smith, the father of English geology, Thomas Young, the natural philosopher, Brunel, Bentham, Maudsley, and Francis Ronalds, who by securing perfect insulation was the first to demonstrate the practicability of passing an electric message through a lengthened space, together with many others, the fruits of whose labors we are now reaping.
speaker_6NARRATOR
The following pages briefly record the births, deaths, and more striking incidents in the lives of those benefactors to mankind.
3 HRS 44 MINS LATER
speaker_6NARRATOR
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Memoirs of the Distinguished Men of Science of Great Britain Living in the Years 1807 to '8 by William Walker Jr.
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Chapter twenty-six.
speaker_6NARRATOR
Edward Jenner, medical doctor, doctor of laws, fellow of the Royal Society, member of the Institute of France, born May seventeenth, 1749, died January twenty-sixth, 1823.
speaker_6NARRATOR
Edward Jenner, who by his discovery of vaccination has preeminently acquired a right to the title of the benefactor of mankind, was born at the vicarage house of Berkeley in Gloucestershire and was the third son of the Reverend Stephen Jenner, rector of Rockhampton and vicar of Berkeley.
Avi CooperHOST
Yeah.
Avi CooperHOST
Edward Jenner invented vaccines.
Avi CooperHOST
Cancer immunotherapy is a modern discovery.
Avi CooperHOST
The electronic health record has made life more efficient and pleasant for physicians.
Michael T. Myers Jr.GUEST
In 1796, a British physician demonstrated the principles of how a vaccine works.
Michael T. Myers Jr.GUEST
when he took this is Dr. Edward Jenner cowpox pus because he noticed that milkmaids who had cowpox lesions did not get smallpox and smallpox, which has now been the only infectious disease to be completely eradicated from planet Earth.
Michael T. Myers Jr.GUEST
That declaration was made in 1980.
Michael T. Myers Jr.GUEST
Jenner observed that those cowpox-infected milkmaids didn't get smallpox, which killed millions of people and was very disfiguring.
Holly FreyHOST
That is using material from smallpox sores to stimulate the immune system to create antibodies, leading to a typically milder case of smallpox and lifelong immunity to it.
Holly FreyHOST
The practice of variolation dates back hundreds of years at least, and it is something that we have talked about in our episodes on Edward Jenner and the eradication of smallpox.
Tracy V. WilsonHOST
As I was researching this, there seemed to be some Not exactly debate, but kind of a lack of consistency about whether people considered things like the smallpox vaccine, the flu shot, that kind of thing, to fall under the umbrella of-
Holly FreyHOST
Yeah
GeorgiaHOST
It traveled outside of China, and eventually it was being used across the whole world.
GeorgiaHOST
But then came a man called Edward Jenner.
GeorgiaHOST
Edward Jenner was born in Berkeley, Gloucestershire on the 17th of May 1749.
GeorgiaHOST
He was the eighth of nine children born to the local vicar and his wife.
GeorgiaHOST
He went to school in Wotton-under-Edge and Cirencester and was inoculated for smallpox using this variolation technique and this would have a lifelong effect on his health.
GeorgiaHOST
From my research, the first person to make this connection was English physician John Fuster in 1768.
GeorgiaHOST
And then in the next couple of years, at least five people in England and Germany tested this hypothesis with a basic vaccine made from cowpox.
GeorgiaHOST
However, it was Edward Jenner who made this procedure more widely understood and his particular contribution to it was unique.
Joshua P. WarrenHOST
Uh, I mean, the smallpox vaccine, that was a huge one.
Joshua P. WarrenHOST
It was developed by, uh, Dr. Edward Jenner in 1796.
Joshua P. WarrenHOST
They call it the most powerful and successful vaccine in history, and it saved hundreds of millions of lives worldwide.
Joshua P. WarrenHOST
And smallpox was just absolutely horrible, okay? When you got smallpox back in those days, you'd get ...
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