EDWARD, the third son of the Rev. Stephen Jenner, was born May 17, 1749, in the vicarage-house of Berkeley, in Gloucestershire, of which parish his father, a man of independent fortune, and of a family long established and esteemed in that neighbourhood, was incumbent. At the death of that parent in 1754, the care of Edward Jenner's education devolved upon his eldest brother, Stephen, who succeeded to the living of Berkeley, and faithfully and affectionately discharged the duties of a father towards him.

He began at a very early age to give tokens of that fondness and aptitude for the study of natural history, which first directed the choice of his profession; and afterwards led him by steps which may be easily traced, to the discovery of a method of securing the constitution against the small-pox by a remedy so

mild as to be scarcely an inconvenience, yet so effectual as almost to have extinguished that disease in some countries where it has been energetically used.

Having finished his school education and fixed upon a profession, Jenner was apprenticed at the usual age to Mr. Ludlow, a surgeon practising at Sodbury, near Bristol; and in 1770, when nearly twenty-one, he came to London, and put himself under the tuition of John Hunter, in whose house he lived for two years, as much in the capacity of a friend as in that of a pupil, with great advantage to his professional studies. The intimacy between these two eminent men was very close and cordial, and subsisted till Hunter's sudden death in 1793. It is attested by many letters from Mr. Hunter, which Jenner carefully preserved; his own were probably destroyed, with the rest of Hunter's papers, by the late Sir Everard Home. Their correspondence relates chiefly to facts and experiments in natural history.

The success with which Jenner had already pursued his studies, and the respect entertained for his talents by his illustrious instructor at a period when their intercourse was yet in its infancy, may be gathered from his being selected in 1771, on the recommendation of Mr. Hunter, to arrange the collections in natural history which had been made by Sir Joseph Banks in his voyage round the world with Captain Cook, then just completed. Jenner acquitted himself so well of this charge, that he was offered, though little more than twenty-two years of age, the situation of naturalist to the second expedition under the command of Captain Cook, which sailed in 1772. This was a flattering proposal to so young a man, and consonant to Jenner's ruling tastes; nevertheless he declined it. It is fortunate for mankind that he chose the laborious seclusion of a country practice in pre

ference to aiming at distinction and wealth; for in no other sphere could he have found opportunities of pursuing his discovery of vaccination through all the perplexities in which his early researches into that subject involved him. Indeed, it is probable that considerations of this kind, independently of his fondness for a country life, had their weight with him in the choice; for the idea had already taken strong hold of his naturally sanguine feelings and quick apprehension, that he was furnished with a clue which might lead him to a result of the highest importance to mankind.

It may be added here that a few years after this time he declined a very lucrative situation in India, as well as a much more tempting proposal from Mr. Hunter, in 1775, to join him in a project for establishing in London a school of natural history, including medicine, of which Jenner was to undertake the anatomical department.

Having determined to settle in the country, and being amply provided with the requisite knowledge, Jenner established himself as a general practitioner at Berkeley. Here he speedily acquired a profitable and extensive practice; so much so, indeed, that finding his health giving way, he was obliged to limit himself to the practice of medicine alone; for which purpose he purchased, as it was then customary, the degree of doctor at St. Andrew's, in 1792.

But he not only attained at an early age to a high degree of professional reputation, but won the affectionate esteem of all with whom he associated. It is related of him that his friends were in the habit of joining in his daily professional rides, often of considerable extent, for the sake of his agreeable and instructive conversation; and that when any of them were ill, he would sometimes make their houses the head-quarters of his practice for the time being, and

remain in close attendance upon them till their recovery.

Music, the lighter kinds of literature, both as a reader and occasionally as an author, and the innocent recreations of society, which no one enjoyed more keenly than himself, were the means by which Jenner lightened the burden of his professional labours; but his chief amusement was natural history, including geology, a science then in its infancy, for the study of which his position in the vale of Gloucester afforded ample opportunity, the neighbourhood abounding with fossil remains, and exhibiting a great variety of terrestrial structure. Towards subjects of this nature he was led, not only by his original bias, but by his correspondence with Hunter, Banks, and Parry.

In 1778 he formed a medical society, which held its periodical meetings at Rodborough, for the purpose of communicating professional information and promoting a friendly feeling among the members. In furtherance of these objects, Jenner contributed several important and original papers, the substance of which is now embodied in medical science, without his property in them being generally known. Among these were essays on the nature and causes of Angina Pectoris, on a peculiar disease of the heart occurring in acute rheumatism, and on several of the more severe affections of the eye. He also belonged to another medical society, meeting at Alveston near Bristol, to the members of which, who were men of congenial dispositions with his own, he was personally much attached. Upon one topic, however, they did not agree; for it is said that he was in the habit of enlarging so frequently upon his favourite speculation of the cow-pox, that the subject was at length proscribed, and he was jestingly forbidden to renew it on pain of expulsion. This club was for many years a

source of much enjoyment and advantage to him, and we may suppose that he was a very principal contributor to the diversion of the other members; for it ceased to exist in 1789, when other objects began to engross the time that he could spare from his practice. In March of the previous year, at the age of thirtyseven, he married Miss Catharine Kingscote, by whom he had several children. The choice appears to have been a very fortunate one for his domestic happiness.

In 1786 he had communicated to Mr. Hunter, in the form of an essay, the result of several years' careful observation of the singular habits of the cuckoo, till then a mystery to naturalists. It was presented by Mr. Hunter to the Royal Society, and was printed entire in their Transactions in 1789, having been returned to Jenner in the mean time, in order that he might record some additional facts which he had ascertained. This tract has been considered as a very masterly performance, and was the occasion of the author being elected to the fellowship of the Royal Society. It is not a little remarkable that Mr. Hunter, like Jenner's friends at Alveston, thought so doubtfully of his views on the subject of vaccination, that he cautioned him against publishing them, lest they should interfere with the fame he had acquired in the learned world by his Essay on the Cuckoo.' But the event proved that the caution, though well meant, was unnecessary. Jenner was not more disposed than his gifted master to admit any conclusion on merely collateral grounds, that might be put to the test of experiment. This, however, was too new and important a matter to be lightly or prematurely hazarded; and Jenner waited long and patiently for an opportunity of thus testing his opinions, losing in the mean time no occasion of collecting additional information. The idea, thus watchfully and laboriously improved, was first excited in his mind while