Edward Jenner was the third son of the Vicar of Berkeley, in Gloucestershire, where he was born, May 17, 1749. Before he was nine years of age he showed a growing taste for natural history, in forming a collection of the nests of the dormouse; and when at school at Cirencester he was fond of searching for fossils, which abound in that neighborhood. He was articled to a surgeon at Sudbury, near Bristol, and at the end of his apprenticeship came to London, and studied under John Hunter, with whom he resided as a pupil for two years and formed a lasting friendship with that great man. In 1773 he returned to his native village, and commenced practice as a surgeon and apothecary, with great success. Nevertheless, he abstracted from the fatigues of country practice sufficient time to form a museum of specimens of comparative anatomy and natural history. He was much liked, was a man of lively and simple humor, and loved to tell his observation of nature in homely verse; and in 1788 he communicated to the Royal Society his curious paper on the cuckoo. At the same time he carried to London a drawing of the casual disease, as seen on the hands of the milkers, and showed it to Sir Everard Home and to others. John Hunter had alluded frequently to the fact in his lectures; Dr. Adams had heard of the cow-pox both from Hunter and Clive, and mentions it in his "Treatise on Poisons," published in 1795, three years previous to Jenner's own publication. Still, no one had the courage or the penetration to prosecute the inquiry except Jenner. Jenner now resolved to confine his practice to medicine, and obtained, in 1792, a degree of M.D. from the University of St. Andrew's.