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(1749–1823) . For centuries smallpox was a scourge. The dread disease killed or left weakness and hideous scars. When late in the 18th century Edward Jenner, a young physician, startled the medical profession by claiming that people who had had cowpox would not get smallpox, his theory was scorned. After many years, however, doctors began using Jenner’s method, based upon his theory, of preventing smallpox. He called the method vaccination. By 1979 the disease was declared eradicated (see vaccines).

caused by the variola virus. For centuries, epidemics of smallpox affected people all over the globe, and the disease was often serious. But in 1796, an English doctor named Edward Jenner discovered a way to protect people from getting smallpox, and his experiments eventually led to the development of the first smallpox vaccine.