Introduction
Surgeon Edward Jenner (1749-1823) and farmer Benjamin Jesty (1736-1816) are rightly credited with saving more lives than anyone else, by conceiving and demonstrating the principle of vaccination. What is less often emphasised is that it only happened because they listened respectfully to an old wives’ tale.
BENJAMIN JESTY, a Dorsetshire farmer, heard from his dairymaids that the skin-rash caused by cowpox had one blessing: once you’d had it, you didn’t get smallpox.
So when smallpox broke out in Yetminster in 1774, Benjamin deliberately infected his wife Elizabeth and their two sons with cowpox, giving them lifelong immunity.
Rural doctors had long suspected this might work, and one Dr Fewster had presented a paper on the matter in London nine years before.
It was however not until 1796 that another Gloucestershire GP, Edward Jenner, conclusively proved their guess, protecting his gardener’s son from the potentially fatal effects of ‘variolation’, inoculation with deadly smallpox itself, by ‘vaccination’, infecting him first with harmless cowpox.*
Jenner’s success, scientific rigour and tireless advocacy slowly convinced the doubters. In 1840, variolation was banned by Parliament, and superseded by Jenner’s vaccination. Soon his technique was turning the tide against diseases from smallpox to polio, meningitis, measles, and tetanus.
‘Variolation’ derives from the scientific name for smallpox, ‘variola’. ‘Vaccination’ was coined by Jenner from the Latin word for a cow, ‘vacca’; Louis Pasteur widened its use to cover all kinds of inoculation using dead, weaker or related strains of a disease, in honour of Jenner.
Précis
The principle that an immunity to smallpox could be created using harmless cowpox was passed around as an old wives’ tale by dairymaids until 1774, when it was proved in practice by Benjamin Jesty, a Dorsetshire farmer, to be scientifically confirmed twenty years later by Gloucestershire surgeon Edward Jenner. Since then, their technique of vaccination has saved countless lives worldwide. (60 / 60 words)
The principle that an immunity to smallpox could be created using harmless cowpox was passed around as an old wives’ tale by dairymaids until 1774, when it was proved in practice by Benjamin Jesty, a Dorsetshire farmer, to be scientifically confirmed twenty years later by Gloucestershire surgeon Edward Jenner. Since then, their technique of vaccination has saved countless lives worldwide.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: because, may, must, or, otherwise, ought, unless, who.
Archive
Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
Jigsaws Based on this passage
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Disease. His. Paper.
2 Against. Slow. Success.
3 Bless. First. Itself.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
Add Vowels Find in Think and Speak
Make words by adding vowels to each group of consonants below. You may add as many vowels as you like before, between or after the consonants, but you may not add any consonants or change the order of those you have been given. See if you can beat our target of common words.
sprng (6)
aspiring. sparing. spearing. sprang. spring. sprung.
You are welcome to share your creativity with me, or ask for help with any of the exercises on Clay Lane. Write to me at this address:
See more at Email Support.
If you like what I’m doing here on Clay Lane, from time to time you could buy me a coffee.
Buy Me a Coffee is a crowdfunding website, used by over a million people. It is designed to help content creators like me make a living from their work. ‘Buy Me a Coffee’ prides itself on its security, and there is no need to register.
