This image from the medical history series by Robert A. Thom is titled: Jenner: Smallpox is Stemmed. Vaccination against deadly infectious diseases was a major goal of 20th century pharmaceutical companies, and the search for a polio vaccine was heating up at the time Thom painted his series. This painting depicts the use of the first Western vaccine: the cowpox vaccine to protect against smallpox. Edward Jenner, a rural English doctor, is shown injecting his first patient, James Phipps, in 1796, using fluid obtained from scratches on the hand of dairymaid Sarah Nelmes, standing behind him. His observation that dairymaids seemed to gain immunity to smallpox from their exposure to cowpox led to Jenner's experiments and the eventual widespread adoption of smallpox vaccination. In 1980, the disease of smallpox was declared eradicated from the world.