Edward Jenner, Pioneer Student of Two Major Ornithological Problems

Abstract

WHILE von Pernau (1660-1731), whose work Stresemann (1947) has compared to that of Altum, Heinroth, and Eliot Howard, was clearly the pioneer student of bird behavior in the early 18th century, Edward Jenner (1749-1823) was a pioneer of the late 18th century whose talents for seeing problems, asking questions, and performing simple experiments entitle him to be considered, as far as method goes, as being a predecessor of Darwin and Tinbergen. As with von Pernau, Jenner's contributions were overlooked by many. This was due in his case to the overriding acclaim resulting from his discovery of vaccination, a discovery, incidentally, that came only after years of the same kind of patient field observations and experiments that characterized his bird studies. It should not be forgotten, however, that it was his Observations on the natural history of the Cuckoo (1788) that had won him membership in the Royal Society 10 years before. His work on bird migration, although done at about the same time, was not published until after his death in 1823. Both of these papers were landmarks in ornithological history, for no one prior to Jenner had approached these problems, of brood parasitism and migration, in anywhere near so comprehensive a fashion or with such searching questions. Jenner was born in the vicarage of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, in 1749. Although the son of Rev. Stephen Jenner, who died when Edward was five, and brought up by his eldest brother, who was also a clergyman, his writings, unlike those of von Pernau and earlier 18th century naturalists, are remarkably free of references to God or to theology. They are straightforward and in the modern vein. Like most great naturalists, Jenner's interests in natural history were well begun by the time of school age when he was known to have collected fossils as well as the nests of dormice. At 13 he was apprenticed to a local surgeon and at 20 went to London to live for 2 years with John Hunter (1728-1793), an extraordinarily versatile and original man, devoted to the idea that natural history should be the basis for discoveries in medicine and surgery. Hunter not only applied this idea with success, for he was the founder of modern surgery, but also had a succession of great students. Among these Jenner was his favorite. After Jenner returned to Berkeley, being devoted like Gilbert White (1720-1773) to the district where he had grown up, he continued for over 20 years to exchange letters on problems of natural history with Hunter.