Dr. Jenner’s House

Edward Jenner (1749-1823)

Born in Berkley, Gloucestershire in May 1749, Edward Jenner was the eighth of nine children. Jenner was educated locally until moving to London in 1770 to complete his medical training at St. George’s Hospital. He returned to Berkley in 1772, where he became the local practitioner and surgeon. Although in later years he opened practices in Cheltenham and London, Jenner remained a Berkley resident for the rest of his life.

Today, Dr. Jenner’s House is open to the public. Owned by the Jenner Trust, the house is both a preservation of Jenner’s work and celebration of his remarkable legacy.

Smallpox

Edward Jenner is best known for his pioneering work on developing a vaccination against smallpox. At the time that Jenner was a practitioner, people were protected against smallpox by variolation*. A small amount of smallpox infection was introduced to a patient by scratching it into their arm, or making them inhale infected material (such as smallpox scabs). The patient would subsequently develop mild smallpox symptoms but usually survive, unlike people who caught smallpox without having been through the variolation procedure. In these cases the mortality rate was around 3 in 10; those who survived often suffered permanent effects such as scarring, blindness, and infertility.

Through his work as a doctor in a rural community, Jenner came across cases of cowpox. Milkmaids would sometimes contract this from their cattle, resulting in feeling under the weather for a few days and developing sores on their hands. Beyond this, the disease did not trouble people. In fact, local wisdom said that those who caught cowpox were then protected from smallpox.

In 1796, dairy worker, Sarah Nelmes, sought advice from Jenner about a rash on her hand. Sarah confirmed that her cow, Blossom, had cowpox, leading to a diagnosis of the same in Sarah. Jenner recognised an opportunity to test the hypothesis that cowpox protected against smallpox.

Developing a Vaccine

James Phipps, the eight year old son of Jenner’s gardener, was chosen for the test. Jenner used variolation to introduce James to infected matter from Sarah’s cowpox. As expected, James became unwell with cowpox, but recovered fully.

Months later, Jenner variolated James with a sample of smallpox. James showed no effects, remaining healthy. Jenner repeated the test over a series of months and at no time did James develop smallpox. This was the first recorded successful vaccination against smallpox.

There was both support and opposition to Jenner’s work, and vaccinations generally. People were alarmed at the use of cowpox; including concerns that it would turn people into cows. Others saw vaccination as a safer method of protection than variolation. Variolation – a form of inoculation – used smallpox material to stimulate a mild form of smallpox which built resistance to a stronger bout. The vaccination model, which Jenner developed, instead used cowpox matter to develop resistance to smallpox.

Following the success of his vaccine, Edward Jenner established the world’s first vaccination clinic in his garden. The building, the Temple of Vaccinia, was built for him by a friend, Robert Ferryman. From here, Jenner offered members of the community free vaccinations against smallpox. The building stands to this day and is open to visitors. The temple is listed at one of the 100 most important historical places in England (Historic England).

Visiting

As well as the temple, visitors can explore Edward Jenner’s house which is set out to tell the story of his life and times. There is, understandably, extensive information about his ground-breaking work to develop a smallpox vaccine.

The history goes beyond Jenner’s time to follow the work which, just under 200 years later, ended with the eradication of smallpox around the world. On 8 May 1980, the World Health Organisation made the official announcement that smallpox was eradicated.

Rooms are kept in the style of the time Jenner lived and worked in Berkley. Exhibits build the story of Jenner’s life and research and include curiosities such one of Blossom the cow’s horns.

The main section of gardens are designed in the style of the day (Georgian) and showcase some of the plants which Jenner cultivated, including white strawberries. The original vinery continues to thrive in the glasshouse – Jenner grew the vines from cuttings he took from the Great Vine at Hampton Court Palace. A modern psychic garden displays a range of herbs, of the sort which Edward Jenner might have used in treatments.

Jenner studied as resident pupil of surgeon and experimentalist, John Hunter, in London. After Jenner returned to Berkley, the two maintained a lifelong friendship, rooted in shared interests including surgery, botany, and natural history. Exploring the gardens at Dr. Jenner’s House, one can imagine him observing and recording animal behaviours, which he reported on through a series of letters exchanged with Hunter.

Finally

In 1801 Jenner published his treatise ‘On the Origin of the Vaccine Inoculation‘, in which he wrote:

“the annihilation of the smallpox, the most dreadful scourge of the human species, must be the final result of this practice.”

Worldwide, smallpox killed hundreds of millions of people over thousands of years. It is a widely held belief that Edward Jenner is responsible for saving more lives than any other person in human history. Estimates suggest that 200 million lives have been saved since the vaccine was introduced.

It is a sobering thought that smallpox remains the only human infectious disease to be eradicated to date. It needed a global effort to achieve this feat. Politics, conflict, budgets, were set aside in order to overcome the virus.

*A note on variolation

A British ambassador’s wife, Lady Mary Wortley Montague (1689–1762) pushed for government-mandated variolation in England.

Lady Mary suffered a smallpox infection in 1715, two years after losing her younger brother to the disease. She first learned about variolation when she visited Istanbul in 1717, where it was common practice and administered by women within the community rather than doctors. She later asked the embassy to inoculate her two children.

On returning to England, word about the practice of variolation spread among the aristocracy and royal family. Following trials on orphans and prisoners, Charles Maitland, a physician, successfully inoculated the two daughters of the Princess of Wales using variolation in 1722. Thereafter, variolation became common in Great Britain and other European countries.

As an untrained female, Lady Mary faced increasing hostility, including accusations of being an ‘unnatural mother’. Her openly visible intellectual ability, and critical mind set her apart from the noble society she was born into. She continued to promote the practice of variolation, but wrote under a pseudonym.