Thomas Nettleton
Encyclopedia
Thomas Nettleton was an English
physician
who carried out some of the earliest systematic programmes of smallpox vaccination and who went on to statistical
investigation of the outcomes.
Little is known of Nettleton other than that he was a physician in Halifax
Yorkshire
. By 1722, Nettleton was aware of several early accounts of vaccination when a smallpox outbreak occurred in his area. He went on to vaccinate at least forty people and reported the results in 1724. However, it was only later that year that he considered the difference in mortality
between those who had received the vaccination and those who had not. It was his letter to James Jurin
that motivated Jurin himself to gather further data and perform his own analysis.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
who carried out some of the earliest systematic programmes of smallpox vaccination and who went on to statistical
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
investigation of the outcomes.
Little is known of Nettleton other than that he was a physician in Halifax
Halifax, West Yorkshire
Halifax is a minster town, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It has an urban area population of 82,056 in the 2001 Census. It is well-known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward, originally dealing through the Halifax Piece...
Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
. By 1722, Nettleton was aware of several early accounts of vaccination when a smallpox outbreak occurred in his area. He went on to vaccinate at least forty people and reported the results in 1724. However, it was only later that year that he considered the difference in mortality
Mortality rate
Mortality rate is a measure of the number of deaths in a population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit time...
between those who had received the vaccination and those who had not. It was his letter to James Jurin
James Jurin
James Jurin FRS MA FRCP MD was an English scientist and physician, particularly remembered for his early work in capillary action and in the epidemiology of smallpox vaccination...
that motivated Jurin himself to gather further data and perform his own analysis.