How did Dr Edward Jenner discover a vaccine for smallpox?

Answer 1

He noticed, in his village where he was a doctor, that the dairymaids (woman who milk the cow) who had previously had Cowpox didn't get Smallpox. He got inspired by that and thought that they might have become immune to it. He also successfully tested this on a boy.

One day Edward was studying a milk woman who was milking a cow when he noticed she had cow pox that you get from cows. Smallpox was very common in those days so he started to wonder why most milk woman had not caught it yet? So he decided to test it on someone . he found a little boy just 8 and a bit years old and he agreed to help him. He deliberately gave him cow pox and the boy was ill with cow pox but he got better quickly . next he gave him some pus out of a small pox boil to see if he caught it. The boy was fine and Edward had found the cure.

Answer 2

Edward Jenner noticed a trend that farm maids who milked cows were oftentimes immune to smallpox. After some research, he identified that cowpox (caused by a cousin of the smallpox virus) infected the maids and was the cause of their immunity. Jenner then experimented with cowpox on a child (history is unclear on whether this was his son or a neighbor). When he later exposed the child to smallpox, nothing happened. Thus Dr. Edward Jenner developed a method to immunize people from smallpox (which was later named vaccination by the French).

Answer 3

TRUE