Jennerian

Jenner

\ˈjen-ər\play ,

Edward

(1749–1823), British physician. Jenner made one of the great achievements in medicine: he discovered vaccination. He started by investigating the truth of the folk wisdom that people who have contracted cowpox are immune to smallpox. In 1796 he performed his first successful vaccination. A healthy person was inoculated with cowpox and thereby contracted the disease. He was then inoculated with smallpox, but he proved to be immune to the disease. Jenner published his results in 1798. He devoted the rest of his life to vaccination. His vaccination was the first use of an attenuated virus for immunization. He coined the term virus; he described the natural history of the cowpox virus; and he published the first description of anaphylaxis. For these reasons he is considered the father of both immunology and virology.