Jenner Studies Smallpox

M. I. POTTS
Edward' Jenner (1749-1823) is famous because he found out that vaccination
with cowpox (harmless) prevented the catching of the terrible disease,
smallpox. This is described in the passage below, which comes from the
author’s book Makers of Civilization, Book 2 (1951). The author worked in
education in Africa for many years, and she is well qualified to write for
foreign students of English.

JENNER was very troubled because there were so many diseases for which
no cure had been found, and of which many people died. The worst of
them all was smallpox, and every year hundreds of people caught the
disease. Of those who caught it, many died; and those who recovered had
their faces and bodies covered with scars 1. Jenner longed to find a way of
saving people from this terrible disease and he thought about it a great
deal and tried to find out all he could about it.
After a time he noticed something very interesting. He found that the
girls who were employed to milk cows hardly^ ever caught smallpox, and
he began to wonder why. Many of them caught a disease from the cows
called cowpox,

JENNKI STUDIES SMALLFOX

which was not wrioui and from which they recovered quickly. I Ir found
that people who had had cowpox irrmed to be safe from catching
wullpox.
One day a girl came to tee him who had a cowpox tore on her hand.
Jenner took some of th«- fl^*rms of the cowp»ni from her hand. He then
(bund a ht(k boy nf nf^ht callrd Jimmy Phipps. He made a snull u ratch
on Im arm Into the scratch he put some of the germs of the cowpox,
Jimmy caught cowpox and soon got better, hut later when he onw near
people who had smallpox he dxl not < itch it. though other people d d.
Jenner was very excited at what he had f >tind. He wrote a paper
about it and had it pruitcd for other doctor* to read. That was how
vaccination was discovered. At firtt people would not believe that what
he had written was true. Many of them thought it was nonsense; and
when Jenner offered to vaccinate people they were too much afraid to
come forward.
Gradually the news spread all over the world and Jenner became a
great hero. The Government ordered that all sailors must be vaccina»-«1
before they went to sea, anJ the doctors of the Royal N J vy were so
pleased that there was no more smallpox in the sliips that dicy gave
Jenner a gold medal.
The Empress ofRussia sent Jenner a gold ring. The doctors in
England collected money and gave him a dinner service 1 of silver plate,
and th English parliament gave him a giû of /^20,000. In Germany the
people kept Jenner’s birthd-y as a national holiday, and another holiday
was the day on which he had vaccinated Jimmy Phipps.
But Jenner was not spoilt by all his fame, and he continued
1
Dinner service: Al! the dishes and plates needed at a dinner.

EAS1BR SCIENTIFIC RNGI I'M PRACTICE to woik as a

humble village doctot. Ik refused to make money out of his
discovery, and througliont his life he always vaccinated anybody
who came to him without making any charge. He visited London
fairly frequently, but he always went back to his village home as
soon as he could. After his wife’s death, when he was sixty-six
years old, he never left home again, but he continued to work
hard as a doctor till he died quite suddenly at the age of seventy-
four.
 EXERCISES
COMPREHENSION
1. Wliich disease used to kill hundreds of people every year?
2. How does smallpox affect a person’s skin?
3. What did Jenner notice about the results of cowpox?
4. What did Jenner do to Phipps’s arm?
5. What was the result of the first vaccination?
6. What did other people think of vaccination at first?
7. Why was Jenner given a gold, medal?
8. What did English doctors and the English parliament give Jenner?
9. How did Germany honour Jenner?
IO. Where did Jenner spend the last eight years of his life?