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Medicine through Time – Advances in medicine: The Renaissance – EdwardJenner 1. Edward Jenner discovered that if a person caught cowpox, they did not getsmallpox, a more deadly strain of pox. This lead to him inventing thevaccination; he infected people with cowpox to stop the spread of smallpox.The word vaccination has its root here with ‘vacca’ meaning cow in Latin.2. Medicine was greatly changed in the Renaissance (meaning rebirth)period, it was not just Jenner who made great changes but many other individuals also contributed to the ‘rebirth’ of medicine. There were two major factors in this change, both affecting not only medicine but other areas inscience as well as life in general. Firstly, traditional beliefs were challengedmore as ancient theories and beliefs were proven to be wrong. Many of Galen’s teachings were disputed and proven incorrect thus leading to morepeople questioning his legacies by people such as Andreas Vesalius who, itcould b argued, started the medical renaissance. This was also happeningelsewhere in the world, for example tradition beliefs about space and theuniverse were also challenged and proven wrong by people like Galileo. All of these corrections cast doubt on many other ancient theories leading to thewider public wanting confirmed principles meaning there was a completeoverturn in ideals and traditional beliefs in the renaissance period.This revolution was hugely magnified by the second factor: the invention of the printing press. Had this invention not occurred, change would havehappened but it would have been on a much smaller scale and taken muchlonger. This is because the printing press allowed the discovery that longlasting beliefs were wrong to be shared far more quickly and to a far bigger population. This in turn meant more people strove to test and prove other beliefs leading to the complete upheaval of former certainties; consequently anew scientific age was born.Both of these developments enabled many outcomes; for one, EdwardJenner could make his discovery and share it with the world. They also set thescene for many other medical reformers and reforms, and allowed medicine,as well as science, to develop as a whole.3. Source 3 is a graph demonstrating how many died from smallpox at timeswhen taking the vaccination was enforced differently. It demonstrates thehuge impact Jenner’s discovery had as it shows how the amount of deathswent down mostly as the government enforces the vaccination more until theamount dying is less than 50 a year were the vaccination again becomesvoluntary. This therefore demonstrates Jenner’s discovery had a large impacton how many died from smallpox as it displays how after the vaccination leadto less dying especially when the vaccination was compulsory and strictlyenforced as the death toll went down even faster at that time. This measurewas introduced after the 1872 epidemic where death peaks to over 400, thehighest since the introduction of the vaccination meaning the government feltcompelled and were pressured to do something about it to stop it happeningagain. Jenner’s discovery also impacted over areas of science and medicineas his idea was developed and copied for vaccinations for other diseases.

4. Beating smallpox can be split into three distinct periods both of whichdemonstrate the use of different factors. The discovery itself, the sharing of this discovery and the impact of the discovery all helped to beat smallpox. Allthree of these stages feature different factors which allowed smallpox to bebeaten.The discovery itself is down to attitudes and Jenner’s individual genius.Attitudes that doctors should be probably trained and be able to observeenquire and experiment was a fairly new ideal due to the renaissancerevolution; however without it Jenner would not have able to make hisdiscovery. Jenner himself must also be taken into account as it was he whomade these links, through his observation, enquires and experiments, saw thesignificance of this discovery and finally decided to make public his discovery.Sharing his discovery was down to communication and technology. Jenner communicated his findings with others who, in turn, past these on to more.This communication let to smallpox being beaten as without it, the newswould not have spread and smallpox would not have be defeated on such alarge scale. Technology played its part too as the invention of the printingpress allowed a bigger audience to hear about Jenner’s discovery thusspreading the news far more quickly meaning smallpox could be beaten muchfaster.The impact of this discovery also helped to beat smallpox as the governmentinvested in the vaccination and later enforced it. Had it not been for thegovernment, smallpox would not have been beaten even with the vaccinebecause it would not have been taken and accepted by the vast majority of the public meaning smallpox would still be a raging disease today.Overall, it is down to attitudes, technology, communication, the governmentand Jenner’s individual genius that smallpox in Britain is such a small diseaseand was beaten.5. The vaccination was not compulsory for many years because many werescared of this new idea and could not see how it worked. They wanted toknow how cowpox could solve smallpox when there were different diseasesbut no-one, no even Edward Jenner himself, could explain how it worked andso less people were inclined to have the vaccination because it was an‘unknown’ and was the theory was not probably understood. This explainswhy, when the vaccination was voluntary, many did not have the vaccination.However, in 1852, the government made the vaccine compulsory but thiswas not strictly enforced leading to again not many having the vaccinationbecause, although the government backing the vaccine would prove to thepublic that the vaccine did work meaning it was trusted, by the governmentbacking it, less may take it just to defy the government and not do as theywere told. I believe that the government innerving was a good measure as itshowed that the vaccine should be trusted however it may have deterredpeople just because the government backed.Following an epidemic of smallpox in 1872, where deaths from the diseaserose sharply, fear was provoked in many meaning that they wanted moredone by the government and did more themselves to stop them dying. Thegovernment then enforced the law surrounding the smallpox vaccine to pleaseboth the publics want for the government to do more and the view that theyshould be able to do more for themselves.