death occurring after vaccination is now eagerly seized and
commented upon; yet seventy years have not elapsed since this
disease might fairly be termed the scourge of mankind, and an enemy
more extensive and more insidious than even the plague. A family
blighted in its fairest hopes through this terrible visitation was
an every-day spectacle: the imperial House of Austria lost eleven of
its offspring in fifty years. This instance is mentioned because it
is historical; but in the obscure and unrecorded scenes of life this
pest was often a still more merciless intruder.

Edward Jenner was the third son of the Vicar of Berkeley, in
Gloucestershire, where he was born, May 17, 1749. Before he was nine
years of age he showed a growing taste for natural history, in
forming a collection of the nests of the dormouse; and when at
school at Cirencester he was fond of searching for fossils, which
abound in that neighborhood. He was articled to a surgeon at
Sudbury, near Bristol, and at the end of his apprenticeship came to
London, and studied under John Hunter, with whom he resided as a
pupil for two years and formed a lasting friendship with that great
man. In 1773 he returned to his native village, and commenced
practice as a surgeon and apothecary, with great success.
Nevertheless, he abstracted from the fatigues of country practice
sufficient time to form a museum of specimens of comparative anatomy
and natural history. He was much liked, was a man of lively and
simple humor, and loved to tell his observation of nature in homely
verse; and in 1788 he communicated to the Royal Society his curious
paper on the cuckoo. At the same time he carried to London a drawing
of the casual disease, as seen on the hands of the milkers, and
showed it to Sir Everard Home and to others. John Hunter had alluded
frequently to the fact in his lectures; Dr. Adams had heard of the
cow-pox both from Hunter and Clive, and mentions it in his "Treatise
on Poisons," published in 1795, three years previous to Jenner's own
publication. Still, no one had the courage or the penetration to
prosecute the inquiry except Jenner.

Jenner now resolved to confine his practice to medicine, and
obtained, in 1792, a degree of M.D. from the University of St.
Andrew's.

We now arrive at the great event of Jenner's life. While pursuing
his professional education in the house of his master at Sudbury, a
young countrywoman applied for advice; and the subject of smal