Dr Edward Jenner (1749–1823): Eighteenth-Century Cardiology Pioneer

Abstract:The critical observations made by the polymath Dr Edward Jenner MD FRS within the realms of medicine and natural science are legendary, yet his hypothesis expressed in 1786 as to the cause of angina pectoris is not so widely documented. Not found in the published literature of its time, Jenner's work on the subject only came to light following the examination of his correspondence with friend and mentor John Hunter, and the minutes of an obscure provincial medical society revitalised in 1896, the centenary of Jenner's discovery of vaccination. The first to grasp the role of the coronary arteries in heart disease, Edward Jenner deserves the belated recognition of his place among the list of renowned physicians to have made significant contributions to the latter eighteenth-century British enquiries into the causes of heart disease.