Western Culture Global Presents

The Top 100 Heroes of Western Culture
These individuals have most contributed to replacing ignorance with knowledge, savagery with civilization, disease with health, tyranny with liberty, poverty with abundance, and despair with happiness.



#39: Edward Jenner (1749-1823)

Edward Jenner (1749-1823) was an English scientist who developed the first experimental vaccination.

In the eighteenth century, smallpox was a widespread and often fatal virus, with the majority of its victims being infants and young children. Jenner created inoculation against smallpox with a related cow-pox virus. (Jenner, in fact, created the word "vaccination" from the Latin vacca , a cow.) His work was based on careful case studies and clinical observation which took place over 100 years before scientists could even explain viruses themselves.

The world today is free from the deadly scourge of smallpox, thanks largely to Jenner. Further, by successfully battling small pox through inoculation, Jenner established the basic approach to fight many diseases, and this would later strongly contribute to dramatically improving human health and life expectancy worldwide.



Go to #40: Ancient Greek Sculptors: Polyclitus, Myron and Praxiteles


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