"Vaccinating the Poor," depicting smallpox vaccination of the poor in New York police station during the 1872 smallpox epidemic. A racially-mixed group of men, women, and children observe a physician as he vaccinates the tattooed left arm of a burly young man. In 1796 Edward Jenner, an English doctor, coined the word vaccination to describe his use of cowpox inoculation to obtain immunity to smallpox. Smallpox was a terrible disease, epidemics of which often had a mortality rate of 20% and left survivors disfigured. Jenner inoculated a boy with fluid obtained from a cowpox blister on the hand of a milk-maid. He later inoculated the boy with smallpox but found him to be immune. Vaccination soon became widespread and eradicated the disease in Europe and the US.