Edward Jenner

My health is generally good, though I am sometimes troubled with a slight indisposition.

I have always endeavoured to live a life of usefulness and integrity.

The progress of science is slow but sure.

I have been much occupied in writing my treatise on the cowpox.

The happiness of my family is my greatest joy.

I have always found great pleasure in the study of botany.

The world is full of wonders, if we but take the trouble to observe them.

I have been much touched by the expressions of gratitude I have received from many quarters.

The deviation of man from the state in which he was originally placed by nature seems to have proved not only the source of the most afflicting maladies, but of the most fatal.

It is not an easy task to root out an error that has been established by the authority of ages.

The joy I felt at the prospect before me of being the instrument destined to extirpate from the earth that most dreadful scourge of the human species—smallpox—almost overwhelmed me.

I have at length accomplished a matter of great consequence, which has been the object of my study for many years.

The grand object of my life is to promote the happiness of mankind.

The disease, it is true, is not a new one; but the application of it, as a preventive of the smallpox, is an original discovery.

It is an observation of a very old date, that those who have had the cow-pox are for ever after secure from the infection of the small-pox.

I shall never forget the delight with which I saw the first successful inoculation of a human being with cowpox.

The value of a discovery is not to be estimated by the immediate profit it may bring to the discoverer, but by the good it may do to mankind.

It is a most gratifying reflection to me, that I have been instrumental in saving so many lives.

The practice of vaccination is now so generally adopted, that it is unnecessary to enlarge upon its utility.

I am not a man of many words, but I hope my actions speak for themselves.