Jenner's centenary and his contribution to public health / [Edward Ford].

  • Ford, Edward (Edward Bruce)
Date:
[1949]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Jenner's centenary and his contribution to public health / [Edward Ford]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    A friendship which was established between Jenner and his famous master in his student days endured till the latter’s death in 1793, and they corresponded regularly. The letters from Hunter to Jenner, preserved in the Royal College of Surgeons of England, show the high regard and the continued influence of Hunter. They are mainly about natural history — criticising experiments, begging or acknowledging the specimens for which he was avid for his work and collections, or requesting information. An idea of their nature can be gained from a frequently quoted letter of August 2,. 1775: I thank you for your experiment on the hedgehog; but why do you ask me a question by the ivay of solving it. I think your solution is just; but why think? Why not try the experi¬ ment? Repeat all the experiments upon a hedgehog as soon as you receive this, and they will give you the solution . . . and let me know the result of the whole,” Even important personal affairs could not displace from his letters- the master’s passion for the work, for after Jenner had apparently written in grief and disappointment at the breaking off of his projected marriage, he replied: ‘7 own I was glad when I heard you teas married to a woman of fortune; but ‘let her go, never mind her.’ I shall employ you ivith hedgehogs, for I do not know hoiv far I may trust mine, I want you to get a hedgehog in the beginning of winter ” and then he sets out the details of an experiment, and makes no- further mention of Jenner’s trouble. Jenner’s natural history studies included work on the habits of the cuckoo, hibernation in the hedgehog, and the migration of birds. For his work he was elected F.R.S. in 1789. He had the curiosity of the true research student, was trained in observation, and deeply interested in the workings of nature. His discovery of vaccination was no accident. Small-pox Before the 19th Century Before the introduction of vaccination small-pox was one of the most deadly diseases. Its high contagiousness and mortality,, the horror of its manifestations, the frequent aftermath of scarring and the constancy of its threat to all who had not already suffered! an attack caused it to be deeply dreaded. It smouldered in the cities, breaking at intervals into widespread epidemics. Its heavy toll appeared year after year in the bills of mortality. It had a. fatality of one death in each six or seven cases attacked, and' probably from half to five-sixths of the population suffered at one time or another. In 1749, the year of Jenner’s birth, it was respon-