EDWARD JENNER: BIOGRAPHY, DISCOVERIES AND CONTRIBUTIONS - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2024

Edward Jenner (1749-1823) was an English surgeon recognized worldwide for his groundbreaking contributions to the eradication of smallpox. His work is widely recognized as the foundation of immunology.

Jenner, who was a country doctor for much of his life, was born at the right time and place: the practice and education of medicine in England at the time were undergoing a process of gradual and constant evolution.

Edward jenner

Little by little the gap between physicians - trained at universities such as Oxford or Cambridge - and surgeons - whose training was much more empirical than theoretical - narrowed. Furthermore, the smallpox epidemic made medicine a highly demanded profession for society.

It was then that Jenner used her ingenuity and curiosity to develop one of the most important contributions in the history of medicine.

Biography

Edward Jenner was born in Gloucestershire, Berkeley, on May 17, 1749; He was the eighth of nine children. Jenner grew up in a religious environment: his father - who died when Edward was five - and his brother were clergymen.

The latter took care of Edward when he was orphaned. Jenner spent his childhood in the countryside, from which he acquired a love for nature that lasted throughout his life. He contracted smallpox at a young age, a fact that marked his life.

At thirteen, Edward Jenner got his start in the medical field when he became an apprentice to a surgeon in his community. Over the next eight years he acquired the practice and knowledge of medicine and surgery in a rigorous and disciplined manner, as well as remarkable dexterity.

Upon completing his apprenticeship at age 21, Edward Jenner decided to move to London. There he became a ward of John Hunter, one of the most successful and renowned surgeons of his day. Hunter, who was working at St. George's Hospital at the time, was noted for his solid knowledge of anatomy and biology.

Mentor and disciple

Hunter was also concerned with having a greater understanding of his field: he conducted experiments and collected and studied biological specimens to understand not only their conformation, but their function and physiology.

During their mentor and disciple relationship, Hunter and Jenner developed a strong friendship that lasted until the former's death in 1793.

Some attributes of Hunter, such as a Catholic concern for living things, an interest in generating knowledge through experimentation, lucid criticism and precise observation, were also cultivated in Jenner.

After studying in London for three years, Jenner returned to the field to practice as a surgeon at Berkeley. The English physician soon found success: he was overqualified, popular in the village, and skilled in his practice.

In addition to practicing medicine, he was a member of two medical groups whose objective was the dissemination of knowledge of their practice.

Multi-faceted

Likewise, Jenner regularly played the violin at a music club, wrote poetry, and studied nature. She also ventured into ornithology: she collected several birds and studied the habits and characteristics of the cuckoo bird migrations.

Much of the correspondence between Jenner and Hunter from these years is preserved today. After a love affair, Edward Jenner married in 1778.

A public threat

Smallpox was one of the most widespread diseases in the 18th century. The epidemics of this disease were short but intense, since the risk of death was very high.

This condition was one of the leading causes of death at the time. An estimated 400,000 people died annually in Europe in the 1700s, and one third of the survivors went blind.

The disease did not distinguish social class and often disfigured those who were fortunate enough to survive.

Back then the only way to combat smallpox was through a primitive type of vaccination called variolation. This method, originally from China and India, consisted of infecting a healthy person with the matter of someone affected by a mild case of smallpox.

Premises of variolation

The variolation is based on two premises: when a person presents an outbreak of smallpox, he is immune to being affected again; likewise, a person deliberately infected with a mild case of the disease acquires the same protection as someone who has already experienced a smallpox outbreak.

Today variolation is known as an elective infection, given to someone in healthy condition. However, it is not a reliable method: when smallpox is transmitted through this method, the vaccinated person does not always present a mild picture.

It was not unusual at the time for a person inoculated with this method to die within a few days, in addition to creating a new source of infection by spreading smallpox to others.

Main contribution

Through observation, Edward Jenner was shocked to realize that people suffering from cowpox, named for its main vector, were immune against the more widespread version of the virus.

Jenner concluded that cowpox not only protected against smallpox, but could be deliberately transmitted from one person to another as a protective mechanism.

As a result of Jenner's work, death rates from smallpox dropped rapidly and this scientist gained worldwide fame.

Recognitions

He was recognized as an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1802, as well as of the Royal Swiss Academy of Sciences in 1806. In 1803, he was appointed in London president of the Jennerian Society, whose objective was the promotion of vaccination to eradicate smallpox.

In recognition of his contributions, the British Parliament awarded Jenner a hefty sum of £ 10,000 in 1802, and five years later he was awarded 20,000 more. Although Jenner was a successful and recognized man, he did not seek to enrich himself with his discoveries.

Retirement and death

After a decade of being both publicly praised and reviled, Jenner gradually withdrew from the public sphere and returned to practice as a Berkeley country doctor.

In 1810, her son Edward died of tuberculosis. His sister Mary died a year later and in 1812 his other sister, named Anne, died. In 1815 another grief befell Jenner when his wife died of tuberculosis. As a consequence of this, the English physician became even more isolated.

Death

On January 23, 1823, Edward Jenner visited his last patient, a friend of his who was in the last moments of his life. The next morning Jenner was found in his study; he had suffered a massive stroke. On January 26, in the early hours of the day, the famous doctor died.

Discoveries

The story of Jenner's main discovery is well known: In May 1976 Jenner found a milker, Sarah Nelmes, who still had fresh lesions of cowpox on her hand. On May 14, using tissue from Sara's lesions, she inoculated James Phipps, an eight-year-old boy who had never contracted smallpox.

Phipps became mildly ill over nine days, but on the tenth he was fully recovered.

On July 1, Jenner inoculated the child again. This time she used tissue from a person with common smallpox. The results confirmed the suspicions of the English doctor: the child was fully protected and did not present any symptoms of the disease.

After investigating several cases, in 1798 Jenner privately published a book called An Investigation Into the Causes and Effects of Variolae Vaccinae.

Unfavorable reactions

Shortly after publishing her book, Jenner went to London in search of patients who would volunteer to be vaccinated by the English doctor. Her stay was short, because in three months she was unsuccessful.

In London vaccination had already been popularized by other people, such as the surgeon Henry Cline, to whom Jenner gave inoculant material.

Drs. William Woodville and George Pearson also popularized the use of the vaccine. Difficulties soon arose: Pearson personally credited the discovery, and Woodville accidentally contaminated cowpox vaccines with infected matter from the most common and deadly version of the virus.

However, vaccination quickly became popular and Jenner became its main advocate. The procedure spread to the rest of Europe and America, and was soon taken around the world. Along with its growing popularity, vaccination ran into problems.

Not all people followed the method that Jenner recommended, and there was often a desire to modify the formula.

The pure smallpox vaccine was not easy to come by, nor was it to be preserved or transmitted. Furthermore, the biological factors that produced immunity were not yet well understood; Much information had to be obtained through trial and error before developing an effective method.

Despite this, it is undeniable that Edward Jenner's discovery marked a before and after in the treatment and management of this chronic disease, which had great influence at the time.

Contributions

Surgery

In addition to her contributions to the field of immunology and biology, Jenner made considerable progress in the field of surgery during her apprenticeship with John Hunter. The doctor created and improved a method of preparing a medicine known as emetic tartar.

Vaccination

Jenner's work is considered today as the first scientific attempt to control an infectious disease through the deliberate use of vaccination. It is important to clarify that he did not discover vaccination, but he did confer a scientific status on the procedure through his extensive research.

In recent years, Benjamin Jesty has been recognized as the first person to create an effective smallpox vaccine. When this disease appeared in the community of Jesty in 1774, he dedicated his efforts to protect his family.

Jesty deliberately used material from the udders of cows previously infected with cowpox, and transferred it with a small awl into the arms of his wife and children. The trio of those vaccinated lived protected for life against common smallpox.

Benjamin Jesty was neither the first nor the last to experiment with vaccination. In fact, the use of smallpox and cowpox was widely known among rural physicians during the 18th century in England.

Still, acknowledging these facts does not detract from Jenner's accomplishments. It was his perseverance in his research on vaccination that changed the way he practiced medicine.

At the end of the 19th century, it was discovered that vaccination did not protect lifelong immunity and that subsequent vaccination was necessary. This was deduced by observing that the mortality of smallpox declined, but the epidemics were not fully under control.

The anti-vaccine

Jenner's method soon found some fervent detractors. People were suspicious of the possible consequences of receiving material from cows, and religious people rejected the procedure for dealing with substances originating from creatures considered inferior.

Variolation was prohibited by Parliament in 1840 and vaccination against smallpox - following the Jenner method - became mandatory from 1853.

However, this led to protests and fierce opposition demanding their freedom of choice. However, this did not stop progress in vaccination research.

Towards the total eradication of smallpox

In the 1950s, more rigorous controls were implemented in the vaccination method; consequently, smallpox was eradicated in many areas of North America and Europe.

The process of global eradication of this disease really began when the World Health Assembly received a report in 1958 on the consequences of smallpox in more than 60 countries.

In 1967 a global campaign began under the umbrella of the World Health Organization. Finally, in 1977 they successfully eradicated smallpox.

In May 1980 the World Health Assembly announced to the world the eradication of smallpox, which had occurred three years earlier. One of the most deadly and contagious diseases in the world is only history.

References

1. "About Edward Jenner" (2018) at The Jenner Institute. Retrieved on October 18, 2018 from The Jenner Institute: jenner.ac.uk
2. King, L. "Edward Jenner" (2018) in Britannica. Retrieved on October 18, 2018 from Encyclopedia Britannica: britannica.com
3. "How a milker gave Edward Jenner the key to discovering the smallpox vaccine (and made him the most famous doctor in the world)" (2017) on BBC Mundo. Retrieved on October 18, 2018 from BBC Mundo: bbc.com
4. Riedel, S. "Edward Jenner and the History of Smallpox and Vaccination" (2005) in Proceedings (Baylor University. Medical Center). Retrieved on October 18, 2018 from The National Center for Biotechnology Information: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
5. Morán, A. "Jenner and the vaccine" (2014) in Dciencia. Retrieved on October 18, 2018 from Dciencia: dciencia.es
6. "The vaccine, the greatest achievement of medicine" (2017) in National Geographic Spain. Retrieved on October 18, 2018 from National Geographic Spain: nationalgeographic.com.es