The Daily Doctor
All About Inoculation
What is inoculation, and why did the people preform it, back when it was still a new idea?
In ancient times, people thought that diseases were punishments from the gods. Many people were falling ill because of an disease called small pox. They only began to realize that you barely get infected twice when the first form of inoculation was created. Today, vaccines have been developed against chickenpox, measles, mumps, rabies, yellow fever and so much more. A single dose of vaccine provides life protection and this information could too.
How is inoculation preformed, in ancient and modern times?
Inoculation today is preformed not so differently when ancients used it. Back then, an old woman would come with a nutshell door to door, containing the least dangerous small pox. She would then ask you which veins you would like to be opened. Using a large needle, she puts as much venom the needle can hold, and makes a cut that hurts like a normal scratch. She then bounds the wound with a hollow shell. The patients would lay in bed with fever for a few days, and from there they would get better. Today, inoculation can be given by injection, by oral route, or by injection.
Ancient People realized that a person rerely gets inflicted with disease twice, what made them come to this conclusion?
Anybody who survived smallpox had terrible scars, which was proof that they survived death. People observing noticed that the survivors never caught the disease again. They were now immune, so people began to think. That was the beginning of inoculation.
Inoculation
A person is getting a form of inoculation.
Lady Mary
The woman that introduced inoculation to Europe.
Vaccination
"Modern day inoculation."
How did inoculation help invent vaccinations?
Inoculation is the process of using the disease to prevent the disease, and is also called variolation. It became more widely used in the 20th century as they became more safe. Then a doctor called Edward Jenner used cowpox to prevent smallpox. He called his technique vaccination, vacca meaning cow. Now vaccination is used for many diseases such as, diphtheria, polio, and others.
What did inoculation do to help the ancient and modern world?
Over 12,000 people out of 1,000,000 were dying from smallpox until inoculation was found. The procedure for inoculation was expensive and there was a risk of people dying instead of surviving, but people did it anyway, and because of that, the death count decreased from 30% to 2%.
What caused inoculation to be invented?
The epidemic of smallpox started inoculation and it helped greatly, in saving lives and finding vaccinations. Millions of people were dying but inoculation reduced that a lot.