A ghostly image has been snapped at a museum prompting speculation that the spirit of the English scientist Edward Jenner could be haunting his former home. A photograph seems to have captured a hazy image of a man sitting on a chair in the attic of the Edward Jenner Museum in Berkeley, Gloucestershire.
-Huddersfield Examiner
I love a good story of things that go bump in the night. And this one has it all - good historical location, famous dead person, mysterious smokey apparition, cynical photographer who 'doesn't believe in ghosts' themselves but just can't explain what he's captured on film... Oh yes, all the ingredients.
Edward Jenner was a famous scientist who was resident in this particular house when he lived in Berkeley back in the 1700s. He is probably most famous as 'the father of immunology' and I remember being taught about him in school assemblies back when I was a wee lad (not in the 1700s) He pioneered a smallpox vaccine turning it from a fearsome disease which killed large numbers of people into an historical anomaly. If I remember correctly he noticed that milk maids didn't seem to get the disease as much as everyone else, then he reckoned it must have something to do with cows' udders. Instead of prescribing national milking service he deduced that the milkmaids were contracting a much less harmful strain of pox from the cows (cowpox) which was boosting their immunity to smallpox. And now, because of the humble milk maid and her cow-pox-pus oozing-blister-covered hands we no longer have smallpox. Genius.
If I am not mistaken Jenner was also the first person to note that when Cuckoos laid their eggs in other birds' nests, the newly hatched cuckoo chicks would push the rival eggs out of the nest. Something like that anyway.
Edward Jenner was a famous scientist who was resident in this particular house when he lived in Berkeley back in the 1700s. He is probably most famous as 'the father of immunology' and I remember being taught about him in school assemblies back when I was a wee lad (not in the 1700s) He pioneered a smallpox vaccine turning it from a fearsome disease which killed large numbers of people into an historical anomaly. If I remember correctly he noticed that milk maids didn't seem to get the disease as much as everyone else, then he reckoned it must have something to do with cows' udders. Instead of prescribing national milking service he deduced that the milkmaids were contracting a much less harmful strain of pox from the cows (cowpox) which was boosting their immunity to smallpox. And now, because of the humble milk maid and her cow-pox-pus oozing-blister-covered hands we no longer have smallpox. Genius.
If I am not mistaken Jenner was also the first person to note that when Cuckoos laid their eggs in other birds' nests, the newly hatched cuckoo chicks would push the rival eggs out of the nest. Something like that anyway.
"You can basically see through a doorway what looks like a figure reclining in a chair, only there is no chair there. Who knows whether it is Jenner himself?"
But back to the mysterious photo. It certainly looks the part, no? Unfortunately I remain unconvinced. I think perhaps I would be less sceptical if the photographer who took it wasn't in the process of taking publicity shots for the Museum's new 'Ghosts in the Attic' exhibition. A photo of a ghost in the attic when they're having a exhibition about ghosts in attics? It's all a little convenient, n'cest pas?
