Competition Entry: “Who do you think is the most influential figure in history?”

History is filled with all sorts of historical figures who have had lasting impacts on different aspects of history and life as we know it, however, when it comes down to who the most influential historical figure is, I would say it is Edward Jenner.

Edward Jenner was a doctor during the late 18th century. At the time, smallpox was a common disease and it was widely feared. It killed up to 33% of those who came into contact with it and there was very little that could be done to treat or prevent it. Something that Jenner would come to notice was that milkmaids who were in close contact with cows rarely developed smallpox. This observation helped him come up with the theory that humans could be protected from the smallpox virus by gaining immunity from a less dangerous strain of the disease. In the case of the milkmaids, this was cowpox – a disease similar to smallpox, but less dangerous.

Jenner tested his theory in 1796 by inoculating an eight-year-old boy, James Phipps, with cowpox from the blisters of a milkmaid who caught cowpox. This caused Phipps to develop a mild fever, but also led him to develop resistance to smallpox. Jenner had found a way to immunise people from what he and many others considered to be one of the world’s “greatest calamities”.

Jenner went on to give up his medical practice and fully devote his time to immunisation work. This work ended up becoming so successful that by 1979, the World Health Organisation was able to declare smallpox extinct.

Through his ground-breaking work on immunisation and vaccinations, Jenner was able to save the lives of countless people. He was able to completely eradicate one of the biggest problems of his time. Without Edward Jenner, people would have continued to die of smallpox and it is likely that this would have resulted in other important historical figures dying and would have slowed down the progression of mankind.