Transcript

The Only Disease You Can't Catch

From Doctor Mike · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 21 min · 3,395 words · 27 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "The Only Disease You Can't Catch", an episode of Doctor Mike published December 28, 2025 (21 min, about 3,395 words). It mentions 6 people, works and ideas, including Cowpox, Edward Jenner, James Fipps, Variolation, Dr. Stacy Charlotte.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Edward Jenner, Cowpox
  2. – 10:00: Cowpox, James Fipps
  3. – 15:00: Cowpox, Edward Jenner, James Fipps
  4. – 20:00: Dr. Stacy Charlotte, Edward Jenner
  5. – 20:38: Edward Jenner, James Fipps, Sarah Nelms

Notable quotes from "The Only Disease You Can't Catch"

  • Civilizations. And yet, you will never get it. Why? It's largely thanks to Dr. Edward Jenner, who figured out how to cure smallox with cows, all before the invention of the light bulb.
    about Edward Jenner · at
  • Would change the course of history forever. Well, I can't get small pox she said. I've already had cowpox.
    about Cowpox · at
  • Scrape a sample of that cowpox leion on her arm. Then Edward galloped to the home of James Fipps, a local child and son of his gardener, who had never come into contact with…
    about James Fipps · at
  • In his private quarters, the king told his wife, Queen Charlotte, about the delightful doctor he had just met with.
    about Dr. Stacy Charlotte · at
  • Disease that has been completely eradicated. It's thanks to Dr. Edward Jenner, James Fipps, Sarah Nelms, and Blossom, Sarah's cow, whose hide still hangs to this day in St.…
    about Sarah Nelms · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

Concepts & topics

Full transcript with timestamps

Smallox. For thousands of years, it ravaged civilization, raging unchecked across the globe, wiping out entire civilizations. And yet, you will never get it. Why? It's largely thanks to Dr. Edward Jenner, who figured out how to cure smallox with cows, all before the invention of the light bulb. This is the incredible true story of how one man saved the human race from smallpox and how if we aren't careful it could come back from the dead. Let's start with the disease itself. Small pox is caused by the variola virus. It seems to have first appeared in Africa around 10,000 B.CE and spread across the globe whether it be along the Silk Road towards China or aboard Christopher Columbus' ships to the Western Hemisphere. But what did smallox actually look like? Well, after being infected, you would develop a fever fatigue, and back pain, sometimes even abdominal pain and vomiting. Then things got really bad. Bumps would begin to

appear on your hands and face eventually spreading throughout your entire body. These bumps would fill with pus and burst, creating painful soores from head to toe. From there, death could occur in any number of ways. The virus could spread to your lungs and cause pneumonia. It could spread to your kidneys and cause renal failure. In the most gruesome cases, the bumps would merge and erupt, leaving open soores on your skin, giving it a black charred appearance, eventually becoming infected, killing you slowly and painfully from the toxicity. It was fatal in three out of every 10 patients.

In virgin populations that had never been exposed to the disease, its mortality went as high as five out of 10. Even if you managed to survive small pox left its mark quite literally. Survivors could easily be identified by the scars of the pox that had scabbed up and fallen from their faces. For many the scars were the least of their worries, as many were blinded or riddled with lasting injuries like arthritis. Smallox didn't discriminate either. The speckled monster, as it was sometimes called, destroyed the poorest communities along the Nile and Ganges rivers. It killed members of royal families. Even President Abraham Lincoln is believed to have fallen ill with smallox just after the Gettysburg Address. There was one silver lining to surviving a smallox infection, though.

It meant you would never get it again. Once exposed to the virus, your body would almost always develop immunity just like it does with chickenpox. Eventually, someone in Asia noticed the pattern, and they began to wonder if this was the way to stop the spread. This led to the creation of a horrific method to prevent the disease called varilation. Then one day in the middle of the 1700s, this ancient and torturous medical procedure was performed on a boy in the English countryside named Edward Jenner just 120 mi west of London in the parish of Berkeley. Smallox outbreaks were on the rise. So Edward's family decided it was best to varilate him.

Here's how that worked. Edward and several boys who had never been exposed to smallox were gathered together and isolated for 6 weeks. They were put on a starvation diet, subjected to bloodletting, and forced to drink snake oil concoctions to sweeten their blood. Finally, at the end of this torture, a doctor would scratch the boy's arms to create an opening and expose the wound to dried scabs from smallpox patients. Yuck. The theory was that by exposing children to old smallpox scabs, they might develop only a mild form of the illness, overcome it and be immune to a deadlier version later in life. The evidence for this was thin, but they felt there was simply no other alternative. Unfortunately for Edward, he didn't get a mild form of smallox. He got the real deal full-blown virilent disease and nearly died.

Miraculously, he pulled through and was now immune from smallox for the rest of his life. There's got to be a better way, he thought. After finishing grammar school, he was sent off to be an apprentice to Dr. Daniel Lello, a country surgeon and apothecary in the West of England. Medicine was pretty barbaric back then. Some treatments often involved getting an injured farmer blackout drunk before sewing off his broken leg only to later watch the leg get infected and the patient die in agony. As he got older, Mr. Lello eventually allowed Edward to treat patients on his own. And this is where the legend begins. One day, Edward went to a farm to treat a sick milkmaid.

There had been smallox outbreaks in the area, so Edward suggested she get varilated to protect herself. That's when the milkmaid said something that would change the course of history forever. Well, I can't get small pox she said. I've already had cowpox. Cowpox is a virus that grows on cow's uters. It can be transmitted across a variety of animals such as cats and rodents, but it could also be passed on to humans who come into contact with the sores. If a milkmaid touched the uters of a sick cow, there was a chance they would contract cowpox, grow lesions on their hands, develop a mild illness, and usually recover just fine with the added benefit of smallpox immunity. It turned out that the milkmaid was correct, but it would be decades before Edward would realize it.

Edward completed his training and at just age 21 years old, he packed his bags and secured a new apprenticeship with Mr. John Hunter in London. The city was thriving through the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution with thousands of immigrants hungry for work crammed into tiny apartments lining filthy roads. It was a chaotic mixture of languages, races, faiths, and of course, disease. Smallox was everywhere killing people faster than they could be buried, leaving piles of dead bodies along the roads. Edward hated it. But for an ambitious young doctor, London was the place to be. And John Hunter took Edward under his wing, eager to expose him to the newly emerging world of human anatomy with hundreds and hundreds of dissections. But how did surgeons procure dead bodies back then?

Were these corpses donated to scientific research via person's will ethically? Nope. By and large, cadaavvers in the 18th century came from body snatchers who would scour the streets and graveyards looking for fresh bodies to sell to anatomists for cold, hard cash. One of Edward's jobs was to wait in the lab at night for the body snatchers to come knocking at the door, showing off the dead bodies they had to sell that evening. And here you thought Facebook Marketplace was sketchy. Over the years the two men grew quite close and Edward learned a ton about the human body. As they neared the end of Edward's apprenticeship Hunter actually offered him an official position. And while Edward was flattered, he knew that London was not where he belonged. He dreamed of being back home as a country physician treating the common people on the farms and continuing to study wildlife. Fortunately for us, he did

just that. With a brain full of knowledge, Edward returned to the countryside and started his new life. He established his own medical practice and treated the sick and injured in the small villages that dotted the British countryside. It was on one of his long country horseback rides that an old idea began percolating in the back of his mind.

The, connection, between, cowpox, and smallpox that he had learned about many years ago. He brought the subject up around colleagues and friends and they laughed in his face. Sure, some farmers said they never got small pox after having cowpox, but then again, some said the opposite. But to Edward, that was the point. Sometimes it did work, but why? Sadly, Edward couldn't test this hypothesis. Small pox outbreaks came in waves, and in rural England, you could go years without seeing a single case. Likewise, cowpox was also relatively rare. To get to the bottom of this, he would need both a cowpox and small pox outbreak to happen exactly at the same time. Good luck. So Edward put the word out to all of Southwest England that if a farmer's cow presented lesions on its utters, he had to know about. Edward would ride miles day and night through stifling heat and pouring rain to examine a sick cow. As time went on

Edward's knowledge of cowpox improved his notebooks filled up, and he developed a strong understanding of the disease. Now, all he needed was a patient with smallpox. Unfortunately Edward would have to wait 20 more years. This big break came in 1796. The story goes that a milkmaid named Sarah Nelm scratched her finger on a thorn before milking a cow that was sick with cowpox. Her open wound came in contact with the cow's lesions transferring the virus into her body. Sarah quickly fell ill and Edward was called. Luckily, smallox cases had also been reported in the area. After two decades, the timing was finally right.

This was opportunity he dreamed of. He raced to the farm and began treating Sarah, who had developed lesions and a ferocious fever. Fortunately, she rested and recovered just in time for Edward to scrape a sample of that cowpox leion on her arm. Then Edward galloped to the home of James Fipps, a local child and son of his gardener, who had never come into contact with smallpox. With permission from the boy's father, Edward created the incision in the boy's arm and exposed him to the cowpox lesions he had harvested from Sarah the milkmate. A week later, James began developing symptoms of a cowpox infection. He had swelling in his armpit, a fever, lesions on his arm. His condition worsened, leaving him bedridden while his parents lay sleepless at night. Had they just sentenced their son to death in a foolish attempt to test the scientific hypothesis? As these thoughts raced through their heads, James condition

began to improve. His fever abated, his energy and appetite returned. The sores on his arm scabbed over and fell off. A few more days later, he felt normal. Four weeks later, Edward returned to James' house and performed the procedure once more. This time, he made another incision in James' arm, and he rubbed up ground smallox lesions into the wound and then nothing. Absolutely no reaction whatsoever. James was truly immune. He'd done it. Edward quickly wrote a paper detailing his experiment on James Fipps and sent it off to his colleagues in London. Surely word of Edward's carefully performed experiment would sweep the city and varilation for good and soon rid the world of smallox entirely. Well, not quite. Edward's paper was immediately rejected. Science in the 1790s was a far cry from what it is today. But even back then, there was easy criticism of his experiment. He had an N of one. He tested one kid. Surely a

larger trial and much more evidence would be needed before it would be formally accepted by London's movers and shakers. But Edward wasn't deterred. He kicked his research into high gear exposing numerous patients to cowpox then to smallox. He made progress. Time and time again, he showed that surviving a mild cowpox infection would protect a person against smallox. He compiled the data and had his peers carefully review his findings. Finally, in 1798, Edward Jenner finished his masterpiece, a short pamphlet entitled, "An inquiry into the causes and effects of the var a disease discovered in some of the western counties of England particularly Glouester and known by the name of the cowpox or the inquiry for short. Pamphlet in hand, Edward headed to London for the first time in 25 years to have his work published and distributed among the medical community all at his own expense. Yet again, it

was not received well. First, while Edward's discovery may have been correct, there was still no logical explanation for it. Remember, the discovery of microorganisms was still decades away. No doctor on the planet knew about bacteria, viruses, or germs because at this point, microscopes were not commonly used in medicine. You have to admit, a man saying that touching the disgusting wounds on a sick cow's uters would protect you from the world's deadliest disease just cuz was pretty out there. Second cowpox vaccination would be a death blow to the highly profitable varilation industry which lined the pockets of many London doctors. As Upton Sinclair once said "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Lastly, while the inquiry may have been generally correct, it did contain some errors. Edward claimed that cowpox exposure inoculated a person against small pox for life, which wasn't true. It only provided protection for around 7 years. The randomized controlled trials of rural England in 1790 hadn't been run long enough. I guess despite the skepticism from the medical community it did catch the attention of one pretty powerful individual, the king of England. That's right, King George III from Hamilton. Edward was granted an audience with the king, an impossibly high honor. He had to prepare. First, he had a special newly revised version of the inquiry printed, lavishly bound including a new introduction that showed great admiration for the king himself.

He basically used the 1790s version of Canva. Next, he did what any self-respecting scientist would do. He went shopping. Edward arrived at St. James Palace in London dressed to the nines. He wore a new velvet suit, silk stockings, and a sword. I wish I dressed like this for my residency interviews. Well, I kind of did. Edward was escorted through the halls of the palace into the king's meeting chambers. The proper etiquette was that Edward was not to speak until the king did so first. So he waited. King George looked him up and down until finally after an awkward silence, he broke the ice and Edward began his carefully prepared presentation of smallpox. Before he could get anything out, however, the king stopped him and asked him a peculiar question. Dr. Jenner, do you enjoy music? Edward was confused. Music?

Uh, what? Yes, he replied. I'm quite fond of music. Are you, your highness? Absolutely, the king replied. I'm personally a fan of concert music. The king could not have cared less about Edward's work on smallox. Fortunately because of Edward's years living in London with Mr. Hunter, he was able to play along. Edward and the king swapped stories about their favorite songs and composers, and Edward even talked about a few of the instruments that he knew how to play. King George was delighted and then he left. The king retired to his private quarters, and Edward was ushered away. What just happened? Edward got one meeting with the king and fumbled the bag talking about music. He should have pushed back and insisted they talk about smallpox. He sulkked the entire way out of the palace defeated.

In his private quarters, the king told his wife, Queen Charlotte, about the delightful doctor he had just met with. "We discussed music. He's got great taste," the king boasted. "Yes, but why was he here?" The queen replied. "Oh, he claims to have done some work on smallpox. something about a cure. I'm not really sure. The queen sighed, gave her husband a small kiss on the forehead, and immediately insisted that Edward be brought back to the palace for another meeting, where he explained his findings in great detail.

The, queen, was, moved., Her, sons,, Prince Octavius and Prince Alfred, had died from smallox varilation 15 years prior. For her, this was personal. The queen listened to Edward's presentation and swept into action, securing the English monarchy's endorsement of the inquiry. It turns out the Queen of England was quite the influencer and thankfully ignoring the previous medical recommendations of her health secretary. Word spread quickly. The king of Spain read a translated copy of the inquiry and demanded the vaccine be transported to the colonies in the Western Hemisphere. In Vatican City, the Pope was told of Jenner's miraculous discovery and confirmed that vaccination should be included in a baptism ceremony, removing any Catholic objections. Countries like Denmark and Russia even went as far as to mandate that all infants be vaccinated.

He was awarded an honorary doctor of medicine degree from Oxford University and around 26,000 sterling for his work the equivalent of around2 to4 million today. In his garden, he built a temple of vaccineia where he vaccinated the poor against smallox free of charge. It was the first public health service in Britain. In 1805, the French military leader Napoleon made vaccination mandatory for his armies. He also awarded a medal to Edward Jenner in spite of the fact that France was at war with Britain. At Jenner's request, he also released two English prisoners of war and allowed them to return home.

Napoleon said that he could not refuse anything to one of the greatest benefactors of mankind. As the years went on, doctors began using the microscope in medical research, which led to a better understanding of the disease and enabled them to develop better vaccines that could be more easily transported around the world ready to be used at a moment's notice. The US government began requiring vaccination for all immigrants arriving at Ellis Island in New York and Angel Island in San Francisco. Public health officials also began enacting periods of quarantine to prevent the spread of infection. Of course, mandatory vaccinations and newly developed public health measures were met with resistance from time to time, but they worked.

Mandated vaccines diminished smallox rates further and further. In the midentth century, the WHO realized that if they concentrated their efforts, the eradication of smallox might be possible. A global initiative to stamp out the disease wherever it popped up was accompanied by vaccine support from the US and Russia. Eradication teams around the globe were on call, ready to descend on any city or village with a reported outbreak. Rather than try to vaccinate the entire world, they went on the offensive, aggressively vaccinating communities that were actively experiencing an outbreak. They were essentially playing virus whack-a-ole and they were winning.

Finally, in the 1970s, a Somalian hospital cook visited a local smallox eradication team with symptoms. He was treated and survived. To this day, he is the last human being on Earth to have contracted smallox and survived.

Good, news, from, Geneva., The, World, Health Organization has made it official smallox throughout the world has been virtually eliminated. They then recommended the world stop vaccinating against small pox since it has essentially been eradicated. That being said, while cases of small pox haven't been detected in humans for nearly 50 years, the threat of small pox is unfortunately everpresent. That's because many countries, including the US and Russia, continue to keep smallox cultures in government labs under lock and key. Why hold on to something that could only serve to hurt people? Well in the event that one country decides to release smallpox as a biological weapon having the cultures in the lab allows us to ramp up the production of a vaccine that could be used to stop the outbreak. Keep that in mind the next time you head to the voting booth. Your next president has access to the nuclear

codes and the smallox petri dishes. Today, smallox remains the only human disease that has been completely eradicated. It's thanks to Dr. Edward Jenner, James Fipps, Sarah Nelms, and Blossom, Sarah's cow, whose hide still hangs to this day in St. George's Hospital. About 50 years after Jenner discovered the smallox vaccine, an Austrian doctor discovered that washing your hands could save lives, and they killed him. Click here for that incredible story, and as always, stay happy and healthy.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "The Only Disease You Can't Catch"?

In order: 0:00 Edward Jenner, Cowpox; 5:00 Cowpox, James Fipps; 10:00 Cowpox, Edward Jenner, James Fipps; 15:00 Dr. Stacy Charlotte, Edward Jenner; 20:00 Edward Jenner, James Fipps, Sarah Nelms.

What is mentioned in this Doctor Mike episode?

6 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Cowpox, Edward Jenner, James Fipps, Variolation, Dr. Stacy Charlotte, Sarah Nelms. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The Only Disease You Can't Catch"?

The episode runs 21 min; the transcript is about 3,395 words in 27 timestamped sections.

More from Doctor Mike

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.