Edward Jenner, and Jane Jacobs Essay

This study gives an account of two authors’ works, Edward Jenner and Jane Jacobs who unusually employed scientific methods while researching and writing their novels. The study backs up on this proclamation by providing example and evidence from their text in reference to the books, â€Å"The Death and Life of Great American Cities† by Jane Jacobs and â€Å"Vaccination against small pox† by Edward Jenner. Although, both writers belong to completely different genre where one is a surgeon and the other an urban planner, both used logical explanation providing a method. In other words both are empiricists. Empiricism is a hypothesis of wisdom which states that knowledge crops up from experience. Edward Jenner’s work: Edward Jenner established a method which indicated that vaccination was an effective way of obstructing smallpox. For countless centuries, smallpox overwhelmed mankind. In current period we do not have to be concerned about it and all the credit goes to the incredible effort of Edward Jenner and afterward progress from his accomplishments. The famous scientist, in his three revolutionary expositions contains his proof in support of vaccination and illustrates individual cases. The once-feared curse of smallpox has been eliminated by blockade inoculation. Edward Jenner, in his works on Smallpox, very thoroughly documents all of his cases. In the background of medical science in the 18th century, this study was a major advancement as it takes up countless fittings of contemporary investigational science we take for-granted today: neutrality, hypothesis, and most significantly, reproducibility. Jenner creates a persuasive case that is beached upon information and direct surveillance in spite of the lack of severe controls and precise arithmetical examination. Edward became aware of the tradition that milkmaids who had cowpox could not acquire smallpox, a sickness which affects cattle. Jenner used a scientific method which included developing a hypothesis, formulating an experiment, performing the experiment, and taking comprehensive notes used to verify or invalidate the hypothesis. He describes many of his cases including that of Joseph Merret, Sarah Portlock and Mary Barge who all had smallpox as a result of different circumstances. Edward Jenner than made an observation as he writes â€Å"As I have observed, they who have had the smallpox, and are employed in milking cows which are infected with the cow-pox, either escape the disorder, or have sores on the hands without feeling any general indisposition† (Edward Jenner, pg 15). He then conducted experiments in order to prove this hypothesis. Jenner injected the cowpox virus into a hale and hearty boy named James Phipps who was eights years old. Afterward, he intentionally infused the smallpox virus into the boy. The boy did not surrender to smallpox, even after repetitive injections. Jenner conducted this experiment on a total of thirteen patients using cowpox as a vaccine and thus reached to the result, â€Å"After the many fruitless attempts to give the smallpox to those who had had the cow-pox, it did not appear†. (Edward Jenner, pg 29) Jane Jacobs work: The other example used here of work by research and methodology is of Jane Jacobs. The evidence of her work tactics as methodical is taken from her novel â€Å"The Death and Life of Great American Cities†. Jane Jacobs pioneering work is over three decades old which not only disrupted the conservative ideas on the construction of cities and assisted in reshaping city development, but she did this as an unskillful and as a woman, both historically frowned on in the world of academic psychiatry. With graceful and expressive writing style, Jane’s work guides us to consider every ingredient of parks, sidewalks, district, administration and economy, as a collaborative element encircling both, structure and going further to the implementation dynamics of our environment. Jane Jacobs acquired no proper education in architecture or urban development. She relied on personal interpretation of her environment in her town Greenwich in New York City to provide material for her accusations against the imposing gurus of the architectural occupation. Jacobs starts off by making an observation of brief history of where recent city development came from. â€Å"The Death and Life of Great American Cities† mainly contains observations made by common sense alongside statistical evidence, finances, sociology and values at the base of the author’s opinion. In her point of view, the muddle we identify as cities nowadays emerged from Utopian futurist from Europe and America in the beginning of 19th century. Jacobs claimed that modern system for of planning cities discards the city because it shows no regard to people residing in a society exemplified by layered complications and showing havoc. Now planners use reasoning based on presumptions to find ideology by which to plan cities. Of these strategies, the most ferocious was urban restitution; the most common was separation of uses (i. e. housing and business). She believes that these policies damages societies and inventive economies by forming remote, deviant urban areas. For Jacobs, the solution to this problem, leading to victorious city rests on one word: diversity. In the writers’ perception, this deficiency in diversification results in financial decline, slums, felony, and terrors that are all too known to listeners of the evening news. Cities that function in finest way, utilizes an extensive range of varied interests that draw people and not repel them. Unfortunately, administrator and social planners always believe that planning from the top is better always better than taking and initiative from the bottom. Jacobs concludes that all of these plans persist to apply pressure on the modern city, and that all of them are a failure. Jane Jacobs takes us on an instructive journey throughout the tribulations of modern urban foundation which is synthetically engineered to meet political and financial program. After reading this, we have a greater and clearer understanding of the inherent character of our cities as foundations should be. References Jenner, Edward. 1996. Vaccination against Smallpox. Published by Prometheus Books Hopkins, Donald. 2002. The Greatest Killer: Smallpox in History. Published by the University of Chicago Press Jacobs, Jane. 1961. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Published by Vintage books Lynch, Kevin. 1960. The Image of the City. Published by The MIT Press Bazin, Herve. 2000. The Eradication of Smallpox: Edward Jenner and the First and Only Eradication of a Human Infectious Disease. Published by Academic Press