He thought vaccination offered no advantage over variolation, but maintained friendly contact with Jenner and certainly made no claim of priority for vaccination when critics attacked Jenners reputation. It seems clear that the idea of using cowpox instead of smallpox for inoculation was considered, and actually tried in the late 18th century, and not just by the medical profession. Therefore, Jenner was not the first to try cowpox inoculation. However, he was the first to publish his evidence and distribute vaccine freely, provide information on selection of suitable material, and maintain it by arm-to-arm transfer. The authors of the official World Health Organization (WHO) account Smallpox and its Eradication assessing Jenners role wrote:: 264 
Publication of the Inquiry and the subsequent energetic promulgation by Jenner of the idea of vaccination with a virus other than variola virus constituted a watershed in the control of smallpox for which he, more than anyone else deserves the credit. As vaccination spread, some European countries made it compulsory. Concern about its safety led to opposition and then repeal of legislation in some instances. : 236–40  Compulsory infant vaccination was introduced in England by the 1853 Vaccination Act. By 1871, parents could be fined for non-compliance, and then imprisoned for non-payment. : 202–13  This intensified opposition, and the 1898 Vaccination Act introduced a conscience clause. This allowed exemption on production of a certificate of conscientious objection signed by two magistrates. Such certificates were not always easily obtained and a further Act in 1907 allowed exemption by a statutory declaration which could not be refused.
The second-generation vaccines are also administered through scarification with a bifurcated needle, and they carry the same side effects as the first-generation vaccinia strain that was cloned. However, the use of eggs or cell culture allows for vaccine production in a sterile environment, while first-generation vaccine contains skin bacteria from the animal that the vaccine was grown on.Ernest William Goodpasture, Alice Miles Woodruff, and G. John Buddingh grew vaccinia virus on the chorioallantoic membrane of chicken embryos in 1932. The Texas Department of Health began producing egg-based vaccine in 1939 and started using it in vaccination campaigns in 1948.: 588  Lederle Laboratories began selling its Avianized smallpox vaccine in the United States in 1959. Egg-based vaccine was also used widely in Brazil, New Zealand, and Sweden, and on a smaller scale in many other countries. Concerns about temperature stability and avian sarcoma leukosis virus prevented it from being used more widely during the eradication campaign, although no increase in leukemia was seen in Brazil and Sweden despite the presence of ASLV in the chickens. : 588 Vaccinia was first grown in cell culture in 1931 by Thomas Milton Rivers. The WHO funded work in the 1960s at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RVIM) on growing the Lister/Elstree strain in rabbit kidney cells and tested it in 45,443 Indonesian children in 1973, with comparable results to the same strain of calf lymph vaccine.