06-03-02-001-s
Name: Date:
Subject: Year 6 Science
Unit: 6b Micro-organisms
Edward Jenner
Edward Jenner was born on the 17th May 1749 in Gloucester.
His father was a vicar.
By the age of fourteen Edward became an apprentice for a
surgeon. He later trained to be a doctor in London.
In 1772 he became a surgeon in his home town. In this era many
people died of diseases such as smallpox. It was a horrible
disease. Spots would spread all over your body filled with pus,
making people very sick and many of them died.
Jenner realised that if you got smallpox and survived, it would be
impossible to have them again.
Many people believed in those days that if you caught cowpox, you
couldn’t catch smallpox. Edward Jenner thought this might be true.
He started investigating the idea and doing experiments.
Jenner started giving people a milder strain of the disease to see
if it would protect them from smallpox.
Jenner gave a boy called James Phipps a small dose of cowpox from
a former patient and a small dose of smallpox. James Phipps never
got the disease. He had been vaccinated against the disease and
was now immune to it.
Because of Edward Jenner’s experiments, people all over the world
today have vaccinations to prevent them getting horrid diseases.
© Primary Leap Ltd. 2008
www.primaryleap.co.uk - Primary Resources
Score
10
06-03-02-001-s
Name: Date:
Subject: Year 6 Science
Unit: 6b Micro-organisms
Edward Jenner Worksheet
1) What did Jenner’s father do?
_________________________________________________
2) At what age did Jenner become an apprentice?
_________________________________________________
3) In what year did Jenner become a surgeon ? __________
4) Describe the symptoms of smallpox:
_________________________________________________
5) What was the name of the first boy Jenner vaccinated?
_________________________________________________
6) Are people today vaccinated against diseases?
_________________________________________________
7) Use a dictionary to find the meaning of the following words:
a) vaccine __________________________________________
b) immune _________________________________________
_
c) disease _________________________________________
_
d) era _____________________________________________
© Primary Leap Ltd. 2008