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Edward Jenner Museum, in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, England, is a Museum dedicated to Edward Jenner who invented the Smallpox Vaccine. The museum is said to be haunted.
Background[]
Edward Jenner was a scientist who used to live in the building that is now the Edward Jenner Museum. The museum preserves and displays Jenner's belongings and his research. There is also a café.
Edward Jenner[]
In 1796, Britain was in the middle of an epidemic of the disease, Smallpox. Smallpox was a very deadly disease that could cause anything from terrible skin conditions to paralysis. One in three smallpox victims died and those who survived were often left disfigured, it was a problem since nobody knew how to stop the disease from spreading.
Edward Jenner realised that cowmaids and farmhands who worked on dairy farms often got a similar, but not as deadly disease called Cowpox. Cowpox survivors never got smallpox. Jenner thought up the idea that exposure to weaker versions of more deadly diseases (Such as Cowpox for Smallpox) would mean that the body's immune system could be ready and able to deal with bigger versions of the disease.
To test out his theory, Jenner took a risky move and inoculated his gardeners son, James Phipps with Cowpox. Jenner recorded the effects. Phipps survived the cowpox illness and never got smallpox. Using this information, Jenner was able to produce a Smallpox Vaccine. This stopped the spread of Smallpox and defeated the disease and also started the science of immunology. More Vaccines were invented against other deadly illness and an epidemic of a disease such as smallpox has never been seen again. Smallpox today is controlled in government laboratories.
Edward Jenner died in his home in 1823. His home would later be used as the Edward Jenner Museum.
Hauntings[]
It is believed that Edward Jenner haunts the Edward Jenner Museum. People have seen him and heard him and in recent years. A reporter took a photograph of what appears to be a slight, misty image of Jenner sitting in an armchair.
Others report that the museum is haunted by a small child in the attic, a ghostly dog on the stairs, footsteps heard upstairs when no visitors are in the building, and an apparition of a man.