As history tells it, young Edward Jenner heard a milkmaid say she'd had cowpox so couldn't get smallpox. And thus his idea for a vaccine was born. Now a researcher has fact-checked the tale.

As history tells it, young Edward Jenner heard a milkmaid say she'd had cowpox so couldn't get smallpox. And thus his idea for a vaccine was born. Now a researcher has fact-checked the tale.

One of the most important precautions stipulated by Jenner was that samples should only be taken from cowpox blisters seven days after they first appeared, ensuring that the illness was less virulent.

As Jenner noted in the 18th century, the cowpox virus is also readily transmitted to man. Despite its name, cowpox no longer occurs in cows but wild mice and voles represent a source of infection: ...

Friday marks the 270th birthday of Edward Jenner, the doctor who developed the world's first vaccine. Newsletters Games Share a News Tip. ... but their work often exposed them to cowpox, ...

Jenner combined his collection of patients who had contracted cowpox and developed immunity to smallpox as well as those he vaccinated with cowpox to form the body of his 1798 treatise, “An ...

1796: Edward Jenner inoculates a boy with cowpox. After the lad recovers from the infection, Jenner inoculates him with smallpox, but the boy remains healthy. Vaccination is born.

He diagnosed cowpox rather than smallpox and Sarah confirmed that one of her cows, a Gloucester cow called Blossom, had recently had cowpox. Edward Jenner realised that this was his opportunity to ...

An illustration of Dr. Edward Jenner making history by inoculating an 8-year-old boy with cowpox virus, the first operation of its kind. Three Lions/Getty Images ...

As history tells it, young Edward Jenner heard a milkmaid say she'd had cowpox so couldn't get smallpox. And thus his idea for a vaccine was born. Now a researcher has fact-checked the tale.

Jenner himself never explained how he developed the theory that led to his 1796 experiment. "After Jenner died, his biographer was trying to protect Jenner's reputation," says Boylston. John Baron ...

As history tells it, young Edward Jenner heard a milkmaid say she'd had cowpox so couldn't get smallpox. And thus his idea for a vaccine was born. Now a researcher has fact-checked the tale.