Edward Jenner
(Berkeley, Great Britain, 1749-id., 1823) English physician who is responsible for the discovery of the smallpox vaccine, which was the first fully effective and reliable vaccine in medical history.At thirteen he entered the service of a local surgeon, with whom he remained until he was twenty-one, at which point he moved to London and became a ward of John Harvey.In 1773 he returned to Berkeley to open a local practice, in which he acquired notable prestige.
Edward Jenner
In the 18th century, smallpox was one of the epidemic diseases with the highest mortality rate.The only known treatment at the time was of a preventive nature, and consisted of inoculating a healthy subject with infected matter from a patient suffering from a mild attack of smallpox.This principle was based on empirical evidence that a subject who had overcome the disease did not contract it again.However, the inoculated person did not always develop a mild version of the disease and died often; furthermore, it could act as a source of infection for those around it.
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