ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the triumph of vaccination seems selfevident and secure. Vaccination is responsible for the elimination of naturally occurring smallpox. Its principle has been adapted to the control of many other diseases and has contributed significantly to the development of the field of immunology. Two hundred years ago, the success of vaccination, of course, was not at all certain. In , when Edward Jenner published An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, his contemporaries struggled to make sense of his discovery and his success depended on his ability to convince other physicians to adopt vaccination.
