Today, experimenting on children like this is not only morally wrong but also goes against the law. But it was different back then. There were no such morals and laws back then. Infecting a child with smallpox meant that there was a high chance he would die. But thankfully it didn’t happen so. The child had developed immunity against smallpox. Not only did this experiment prove that cowpox could prevent smallpox, but also that we could deliberately spread cowpox from human to human.
This meant that Dr Jenner had invented the world’s first vaccine. World’s First Successful Vaccine. And this child was vaccinated with the world’s first vaccine. Actually the word vaccination was coined by Dr Jenner. It comes from the Latin word Vacca, meaning Cow. Because cowpox was protecting the child, the word vaccination was derived from here.
Today obviously, the word vaccination has a broad definition. We don’t restrict its use to cowpox only, rather we use this word for every type of vaccine. Vaccination was much safer than inoculation. The 1%-2% risk of dying from inoculation, was diminished further. The chances of dying from cowpox were almost negligible. Today, we’re well aware of the workings of this process.
