Face of the pioneer of the smallpox vaccination revealed

27 June 2006

The Wellcome Trust has acquired a portrait of the late Benjamin Jesty – the Dorsetshire farmer who was the first known person to successfully practice smallpox vaccination.

Vaccination first came to exist in 1774, when domestic experimentation was carried out by Jesty. His family lived in Yetminster, and during the spring of that year smallpox raged in their town. Jesty feared for the health of his wife Elizabeth and two sons, Robert and Benjamin.

Two dairymaids that worked on their farm had both previously had cowpox but still managed to nurse family members suffering smallpox without catching the disease. From this Jesty realised that if dairymaids who accidentally caught cowpox were immune to smallpox, then those who caught it deliberately would be equally immune.

As a result of this, he decided to infect his family with cowpox by taking infected pus from the udder of the cow and injecting it into the arms of his wife and sons. The following day the cowpox ran its course and his family recovered. Jesty himself had caught cowpox from farm cows as a young man and could therefore not carry out the experiment on himself.

In 1805, a medical commission conducted a review on the issue. The credit and financial reward for this breakthrough actually went to the doctor Edward Jenner (1749-1823), who theorised the observation and proved it on an eight-year-old boy in 1796.

The procedure was later named vaccination, derived from the Latin word 'vacca' meaning 'cow'. Unlike inoculation, vaccination is a safe injection, both for the person injected and the unprotected population exposed to him.

In the same year, Jesty was invited to London by the Original Vaccine Pock Institution, who presented him with a pair of gold mounted lancets, a testimonial scroll, 15 guineas expenses, and commissioned the portrait painter MW Sharp to paint him. Despite pleas to do so, Jesty refused to dress up for his visit to London, so was portrayed as the country farmer he was. He proved an impatient sitter and was only quiet once the artist's wife played the piano to him.

After many years the painting was rediscovered by Mr Patrick Pead following a long and difficult search. The painting has now been acquired by the Wellcome Library on Euston Road, London. The Library has many portraits of Edward Jenner, but this is the first and only known portrait of Benjamin Jesty.

Frances Norton, Head of the Wellcome Library, said: "We are delighted to add to our collection of historic pictures a work that records so emphatically the human factor in medical advances."

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Notes to editors

1. The Wellcome Trust is the most diverse biomedical research charity in the world, spending about £450 million every year both in the UK and internationally to support and promote research that will improve the health of humans and animals. The Trust was established under the will of Sir Henry Wellcome, and is funded from a private endowment, which is managed with long-term stability and growth in mind.

2. The Wellcome Library is one of the world's greatest collections of books, manuscripts, pictures and films around the meaning and history of medicine, from the earliest times to the present day. The library is temporarily located at 210 Euston Road while its permanent home is being extensively refurbished at 183 Euston Road.