Discoveries
Vaccination
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Vaccination is the administration of a weakened or related agent to produce immunity against a disease. Edward Jenners 1796 demonstration that cowpox exposure protected against smallpox is the founding episode of the modern practice, though inoculation with live smallpox material, variolation, was practiced earlier in parts of Asia, the Ottoman Empire and Africa before Jenners work. This atlas records what the historical record supports and is not medical advice.
Facts
Disputed
DiscovererEdward Jenner is credited with the 1796 cowpox demonstration that founded modern vaccination, though the underlying practice of deliberate inoculation against smallpox, variolation, was documented earlier in China, India, the Ottoman Empire and parts of Africa. 3 Jenner is credited with founding vaccination proper; the older practice of variolation it built on and eventually replaced has separate, earlier and geographically distributed origins that predate any single discoverer. Discovery Year Discovery Date Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Smallpox, Conditions Jenner's 1796 cowpox vaccination against smallpox is the founding discovery of vaccination as a method.
Discovered By
Why this is disputed. Jenner's 1796 test on James Phipps is the standard credited origin of vaccination and the one this atlas's Vaccination entry is built around, but Jenner was not the first to test cowpox inoculation: English physician John Fewster recognized the cowpox-smallpox immunity connection by 1768, and farmer Benjamin Jesty successfully tested a cowpox vaccine on his own family in 1774, twenty-two years before Jenner. Jenner's distinction is the systematic scientific investigation, publication and advocacy that made the practice known and adopted, not priority of first attempt.
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