THE ULTIMATE
On this day, May 17th 1749, Edward Jenner, was born in Berkely, Gloucestershire, as a doctor and scientist he pioneered the development of vaccines and vaccination.
Edward Jenner demonstrated that contact with cowpox could prevent people getting smallpox. Napoleon having had his troops vaccinated called Jenner one of the greatest 'benefactors of mankind'. The legend of the discovery is that Jenner recalled a rhyme telling of how milkmaids had the fairest faces, that they were immune to smallpox. Jenner tested the hypothesis and showed how and why it worked enabling an effective vaccine to be given to populations. With the milder version of cowpox building an immunity to disfigurng and potentially fatal smallpox. This may have built on similar observations of others, and the practice brought over from the Turkish court by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu of a form of innoculation that included the disease itself - which Jenner had been treated with himself at a young age. By 1979 the World Health Organisation declared smallpox eradicated around the world, apart from some secure vials in the USA and Russia. Not only was Jenner praised in his lifetime for his discovery by Napoleon, but also by the third President of the United States of America, Thomas Jefferson.
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