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Oculation is a procedure in which a small amount of the...

Toussaintfreedom Says...

oculation is a procedure in which a small amount of the infection is placed in a person's bloodstream in order to trigger a mild case, from which the patient recovers and has antibodies.

According to Voltaire, inoculation against smallpox originated with the Circassians and came to the West via the Turks.

Voltaire, who was writing about his time in England between 1726 and 1729, not only provides his reader with a brief historical observation about smallpox inoculation, but he also gives some context to the inoculation debates raging in his own lifetime, when he wrote that "It is whispered in Christian Europe that the English are mad and maniacs: mad because they give their children smallpox to prevent their getting it, and maniacs because they cheerfully communicate to their children a certain and terrible illness with the object of preventing an uncertain one." [1] Here, the fault lines between inoculation and anti-inoculation are geographical.

Posted November 30 2023 at 5:29 PM

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