Who discovered the smallpox vaccine?
Smallpox has plagued humans for millennia, with even Egyptian mummies being found with signs of a smallpox rash.
But the world was declared free of smallpox in 1980 – so how was that milestone achieved, and who do we have to thank?
Who discovered the smallpox vaccine?
Edward Jenner was the first to create and promote the smallpox vaccine, bringing together ideas from medicine and agricultural culture.
Doctors had known for some time that a little bit of smallpox made people less sick and fewer people died.
They scratched material from smallpox ulcers into the skin of uninfected people, or had them sniff it up their noses, using a technique called variolation.
Edward Jenner used the same idea, but with cowpox, which was not fatal to humans, instead of smallpox, in his vaccine, first used in 1796.
Cowpox made people feel a little unwell with a few spots or blisters on their hands – but smallpox killed three in ten people who contracted the disease, and left scars in those it didn't kill.
About four million Aztecs are believed to have died when Europeans carried smallpox to the Americas during their explorations in the early 16th century.
And smallpox killed more than three million people worldwide in the 20th century – even though a vaccine was available.
Jenner's cowpox variolation was successful and based on this work he developed the smallpox vaccine.
This was followed by a massive effort to vaccinate against smallpox, and in the 1950s and 1960s there were two intensive World Health Organization (WHO) programs to eradicate smallpox.
Rahima Banu, aged three, was the last to be infected with the naturally occurring, more deadly smallpox variant Virola Major in 1975, and she survived.
Ali Maow Maalin naturally acquired, and survived, Virola Minor in 1977.
And Janet Parker was the last person to die from smallpox, at the age of 40, after contracting the disease from a laboratory in 1978.
Who was Edward Jenner?
Edward Jenner was an English physician who was born in Gloucestershire in 1749 and lived to be 74 years old – an impressive age for his time – before dying in 1823.
Jenner had been vaccinated against smallpox using the variolation method, and he got the idea to use cowpox from farm workers.
Many farm workers believed that people, especially women, who contracted cowpox during milking did not contract smallpox.
Jenner made his first attempt in 1796 and it was successful.
After many more experiments, Jenner published his work in 1801.
He promoted his new method, but sometimes the cowpox samples he sent became contaminated with smallpox in hospitals, so some people did not trust his vaccine.
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Others were simply resistant to change, and some people considered it dangerous or irreligious for people to be 'infected' with material derived from cows.
A major step came when variolation was banned by parliament in 1840 and smallpox vaccination was made mandatory in 1853.
Jenner received numerous honorary awards and many monuments honoring his work on the vaccine.
And the cow is also celebrated for its role – because the word 'vaccine' comes from the Latin 'vaca', meaning cow.
Who was the first person to receive the smallpox vaccine?
James Phipps, the nine-year-old son of Edward Jenner's gardener, was the first person to receive the smallpox vaccine on May 14, 1796.
The cowpox rubbed into the scratches on James' arm came from an ulcer on the hand of Sarah Nelmes, who had contracted the disease from a cow named Blossom.
Jenner exposed James to smallpox several times a few months later, but it did not make James sick.
The Virola virus, which causes smallpox, still exists in two research centers: one in the US and the other in Russia.
Having smallpox was quite an unpleasant experience with headaches, vomiting and fever, followed by spots, blisters and sores, and then lots of pus and scabs.
If you were lucky enough to survive, you usually bore the scars.