Edward Jenners: The First Smallpox Vaccine
Ever since the first known use, vaccinations have been used to treat disease and viruses from as early as 1000 AD when the ancient Chinese, African and Turkish first started using inoculated technique. Edward Jenner, an English physician and scientist, created the first smallpox vaccine using a similar disease, cowpox, which infects cows, and is credited for being the influence for the practice of vaccination in the present. For over 200 years Jenner’s innovation was used and updated; as a result, the smallpox disease was eradicated. In 1855 Massachusetts passed the first US law requiring school children to receive vaccinations, and by 1963, twenty states would require immunizations to attend public school; and 29 states by 1970. Although