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#85355 11/02/02 08:09 PM
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The same thing happened to "inoculation" and "vaccination," all examples of extending the meaning from specific to general (or at least broader).
How so, please?




#85356 11/02/02 09:41 PM
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The same thing happened to "inoculation" and "vaccination," all examples of extending the meaning from specific to general (or at least broader).
How so, please?


vaccination, is a word formed from vaccine, which is from vaccinus(latin =cows vacca, cow, and actually goes back to sanscrit for cow..)

the first vaccine and vaccinations were treatment that infected you with cow pox-- a disease very similar to small box, but not nearly so deadly.. and not so deforming.
small pox is charactorized by blisters all over the face and upper body. these then swell, fill with fluid, crust, and fall off and leave raw skin.. very ugly. but cow pox? a fever, and pain, and usually only the one blister where you got the infections (for people as old as we are jackie, that is usually the upper arm or thigh) (small pox also creates lesions internally, and these can break down the surface of your lungs, and the internal blisters break down, leading to pnuemonia if you are lucky, or cadio-pulmanary failure if you are unlucky. )

so a vaccination was a treatment to prevent small pox by giving you cowpox--exclusively.. now its used to describe any any treatment that involves creating a mild infection with dead or weakened bacteria, in order to stimulate an immune responce.. and we get vaccinated for polio, and measles, and all sorts of diseases..

inoculate.. carries the word oculus-- or eye! No it wasn't from things being put in the eye, but eye as in eye of needle or eye as a bud.. and the term was used by gardeners when the grafted an eye (bud) of one plant onto an other..

so an inoculation was a process of putting one organism onto another.. and then by extention, implanting something onto another..

its still used in the plant sense, in mexico, corn is inoculated with corn smut, (which has a much nicer and prettier name in spanish). Corn smut is a fungus that produces a kind of black mushroom that the mexican consider a delight, and most american corn farmers consider a blight!

when you have your kids inoculated, you are grafting into them, bacteria.. they don't grown corn smut, but anti bodies.. and so be come immune to what ever has been introduced!
(i have been reading about these words just this week... )


#85357 11/02/02 10:06 PM
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The etymology of inoculation is mildly interesing. It doesn't mean something is put in your eye.
But in grafting plants, usually a bud is included, and the root is the same as for eye.


#85358 11/05/02 09:39 PM
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inoculate.. carries the word oculus-- or eye! No it wasn't from things being put in the eye

Actually I thought it was _exactly_ that. The first "inoculations" against smallpox were supposed to have been performed by dropping the fluid from cowpox lesions into the lower sac/eyelid of the recipient.

Could be I'm mistaken, though, and it wouldn't be the first time....
{See http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=wordplay&Number=51489.)
At least I'm consistent :-)

#85359 11/05/02 09:53 PM
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Dear Wofahulicodoc: I just looked up site about Lady Montague and her making cut and
putting material from smallpox case into it, ditto for her son. The damned site was copy
protected. Putting the material in the eye might have dextroyed it. Below is URL:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/medicine/nonint/indust/dt/indtbi1.shtml


#85360 11/05/02 10:36 PM
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So "inoculation" was originally done with smallpox-based material, and "vaccination" used the equally effective but much less dangerous cowpox-derived stuff. And if your source is accurate the eyeball had nothing at all to do with anything in the process...


#85361 11/19/02 02:17 PM
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Whatever there is about the honey that inhibits the yeast, it isn't an antibiotic in the
pharmaceutical sense.


If it quacks like a duck...

http://www.nature.com/nsu/021118/021118-1.html



#85362 11/19/02 02:55 PM
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Dear Faldage: The trouble with herbals and folk remedies is that they seem to work sometimes,
but not consistently enough that they are abandoned.Here is a URL to botanicals used at
Guy's Hospital in London in1731. If they had worked consistently, they would still be used
in hospitals.
http://www.thegarret.org.uk/herbsatguys.htm


#85363 11/19/02 03:45 PM
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Take the bark of two willow trees and see me in the morning.


#85364 11/19/02 03:53 PM
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Dear Doctor Faldage: Should the bark be from the north side, or the south side of the trunk?


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