er son inoculated. The
practice soon spread through Western Europe and to North
America.

Jenner's discoveries and demonstrations as to the specific
value of the vaccine virus of cowpox, which led to the
modern methods of vaccination for prevention of smallpox,
proved of such efficacy and importance that the whole credit
for this service to medical science has been popularly given
to him. But among the intelligent it detracts nothing from
his just fame to make due acknowledgment of previous work
along similar lines.

There have always been some, since Jenner's time, and are
still considerable numbers of people in different countries,
strongly opposed to vaccination for smallpox, on the ground
of what they deem its unscientific and dangerous nature. But
the vast majority of medical practitioners, and of the world
at large, are convinced of its vital benefits, and in
several countries vaccination is made compulsory by the
State.

Edward Jenner was born on May 17, 1749. He was a native of Berkeley in
Gloucestershire, England. His father was the vicar of this place, and
his mother was descended from an ancient family in Berkshire. In early
life Jenner was deprived of his father, and the direction of his
education devolved upon an elder brother, the Rev. Stephen Jenner. He
attained a respectable proficiency in the classics, and his taste for
natural history manifested an early development; for, at the age of
nine, he had made a collection of the nests of the dormouse, and he
employed the hours usually devoted by boys to play, in searching for
fossils in the neighborhood. "No childish play to him was pleasing."

Intended for the medical profession, Jenner was apprenticed to Daniel
Ludlow, of Sodbury, near Bristol, to acquire a knowledge of surgery and
pharmacy; and, after the period of his apprenticeship had expired in
1770, he went to London to complete his professional studies, and was a
student at St. George's Hospital, and a resident, for two years, in the
family of the celebrated John Hunter. The similarity of their tastes and
spirit of research will render it a matter of no surprise that he should
become a most favorite pupil. That this was the case in an eminent
degree the correspondence which was maintained between the two great
physiologists sufficiently proves. "There was in both a directness and
plainness of conduct, a