Smallpox Vaccination Research Paper

The history of vaccines is very interesting. English physician Edward Jenner created the first vaccine for smallpox in 1796 ("Smallpox: Vaccination."). During the 18th century, smallpox was an epidemic that killed over 400,000 people each year alone in Europe ("Smallpox: 12,000 Years of Terror."). As an experiment, Jenner inoculated eight-year old James Phipps with cowpox ("Smallpox: Vaccination."). He did this by extracting pus from a milkmaid, Sarah Melmes who had contracted cowpox ("Smallpox: Vaccination."). Phipps did not contract smallpox after the injection, which prompted Edward Jenner to conduct the same experiment on his son, getting the same results ("Smallpox: Vaccination."). This experiment helped lower the amount of deaths due