Edward Jenner's lancets

Six lancets, steel and tortoiseshell, in shagreen and silver case, by John Weiss of London, England, 1801-1823. As used by Edward Jenner.

The pioneer of vaccination Edward Jenner used lancets like these to insert pus, from a milkmaid suffering from cowpox, into the arm of a health 8-year-old boy. Several days later, he proved that the boy was immune to smallpox, a much more serious disease which killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world until it was eradicated in 1979.