Benjamin Jesty

Benjamin Jesty (c. 1736 – 16 April 1816) was a farmer at Yetminster and Worth Matravers in Dorset, England, notable for his early experiments in inducing immunity against smallpox using cowpox.

The notion that those people infected with cowpox, a relatively mild disease, were subsequently protected against smallpox was not an uncommon observation with country folk in the late 18th century, but Jesty was one of the first to intentionally administer the less virulent virus.

He was one of the six English, Danish and German people who reportedly administered cowpox to artificially induce immunity against smallpox from 1770 to 1791; only Jobst Bose of Göttingen, Germany with his 1769 inoculations pre-dated Jesty's work.

[1][2] Unlike Edward Jenner, a medical doctor who is given broad credit for developing the smallpox vaccine in 1796, Jesty did not publicise his findings made some twenty years earlier in 1774.

This folk-knowledge gradually became more widely disseminated amongst the medical community: in 1765 a Dr Fewster (possibly John Fewster) of Thornbury, Gloucestershire presented a paper to the Medical Society of London entitled "Cow pox and its ability to prevent smallpox", and Dr. Rolph, another Gloucestershire physician, stated that all experienced physicians of the time were aware of this.

[3][4][6] Interest in the prophylactic powers of cowpox virus grew and in May 1796, over 20 years after Jesty had made his inoculations, Edward Jenner began his series of vaccination experiments.

Unfortunately, Jesty's well-documented case was weakened by his failure to petition in person, and Pearson's inclusion of other claimants whose evidence could not be validated, so no reward was forthcoming.

Immediately after his interrogation, Jesty was taken round to the studio of the portrait painter Michael William Sharp in nearby Great Marlborough Street.

On Sunday 15 July 1806, Bell preached the same sermon twice in honour of Jesty, "whose discovery of the efficacy of the cowpock against smallpox is so often forgotten by those who have heard of Dr Jenner".