DEFINITIONS
Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language, 1828
Inoculate [L. inocula; in and oculus, the eye.]
1. To bud; to insert the bud of a tree or plant in another tree or plant, for the purpose of growth on the new stock. All sorts of stone fruit, apples, pears, &c. may be inoculated. We inoculate the stock with a foreign bud.
2. To communicate a disease to a person by inserting infectious matter in his skin or flesh; as, to inoculate a person with the matter of small pox or cow pox. When the latter disease is communicated, it is called vaccination.
The Century Dictionary, an Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language, 1895Inoculation
1. The act or practice of inserting buds of one plant under the bark of another for propagation.
2. The act or practice of communicating a disease to a person in health, by inserting contagious matter in his skin or flesh. This practice is limited chiefly to the communication of smallpox, and of the cow pox, which is intended as a substitute for it.
Inoculate
1. To graft by budding; insert a bud or germ in, as a tree or plant, for propagation.
2. To introduce a foreign germ or element into; specifically, to impregnate with disease by the insertion of virus; treat by inoculation for the purpose of protecting from a more malignant form of the disease; as to, inoculate a person for the small pox; often used figuratively.
Inoculation
1. The act or practice of grafting by budding.
2. The ingrafting of any minute germ in a soil where it will grow; especially, the act or practice of communicating disease by introducing through puncture infectious matter into the tissues; the introduction of a specific animal poison into the tissues by puncture or through contact with a wounded surface; specifically, in med., the direct insertion of the virus of smallpox in order, by the production of a mitigated form of it, to prevent a more severe attack of the disease in the natural way.
The operation was introduced into Europe from the East by Lady Mary Wortley Montaga, and was first performed in London in 1721. It was superseded about 1800 by the milder and more successful practice of inoculating with vaccine virus.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, 1919sheep-pox
An acute contagious febrile disease of sheep, accompanied by an eruption closely resembling that of smallpox…
Inoculation was practised during the first half of the present century, and frequently became the source of fresh outbreaks. It is now recommended only when the disease has actually appeared in a flock.
Webster’s New Practical Dictionary, 1957inoculate v.t.
Impregnate (person, animal, with virus or germs of disease) to induce milder form of it & so safeguard person against its attacks; implant (disease &c.) thus (on, into, person &c.); insert (bud, scion) in plant, treat (plant) thus. Hence or cogn. Inoculation
Inoculate
1.a. To communicate a disease to (a person) by inserting its virus into the tissues. b. To introduce an immunizing serum into. c. To introduce (a virus, etc.) by inoculation.
2. To introduce (harmful ideas, etc.) into the mind.
Ballentine’s Law Dictionary, James A. Ballentine, Third Edition, 1969Inoculation
Introduction of serum, bacteria, etc. into living tissues; esp. communication of a disease virus to a healthy individual in order to induce a mild form of the disease and produce immunity.
Funk and Wagnalls Standard College Dictionary, 1977inoculation.
The injection of a virus into the body for the purpose of causing a disease in a mild form, thereby building up an immunity. 25 Am 31st HIlh § 35.
Inoculate
1. To communicate a mild form of a disease to (a person, animal, etc.) by implanting its bacteria or virus, usually as a means of producing immunity; also, to implant (a disease, bacteria, etc.) 2. To inject immunizing serums, vaccines, or other antigenic materials into. 3. To implant ideas, opinions, etc. in the mind of. 4. To perform inoculation
Miller-Keane Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health, 2003Inoculation
The act of inoculating; especially, the introduction of disease producing organisms into the body to produce immunity
Collins Dictionary of Medicine, 2005inoculation
introduction of pathogenic microorganisms, injective material, serum, or other substances into tissues of living organisms or into culture media; introduction of a disease agent into a healthy individual to produce a mild form of the disease, followed by IMMUNITY.
Collins Dictionary of Biology, 3rd ed., 2005inoculation
Immunization or vaccination. The procedure by which the immune system is stimulated into producing protective antibodies (IMMUNOGLOBULINS) to specific infective agents, such as viruses and bacteria by the introduction into the body of safe forms of the organism or of its ANTIGENIC elements.
The American Heritage Medical Dictionary, 2007inoculation
the introduction of biological material (the inoculum) into a medium such as a living organism, synthetic substrate or soil.
Farlex Partner Medical Dictionary, 2012inoculation
The act or an instance of inoculating, especially the introduction of an antigenic substance or vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.
Medical Dictionary for the Health Professions and Nursing, 2012in•oc•u•la•tion
Avoid the misspelling innoculation.
Introduction into the body of the causative organism of a disease. Also sometimes used, incorrectly, to mean immunization with any type of vaccine.
in•oc•u•la•tion
Introduction into the body of the causative organism of a disease.
QUOTES
The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion
The Writings of George Washington, vol. VI (1777-1778)PROTOCOL No. 10
19. But you yourselves perfectly well know that to produce the possibility of the expression of such wishes by all the nations it is indispensable to trouble in all countries the people's relations with their governments so as to utterly exhaust humanity with dissension, hatred, struggle, envy and even by the use of torture, by starvation, by the inoculation of diseases, by want, so that the "goyim" see no other issue than to take refuge in our complete sovereignty in money and in all else.
TO JOHN AUGUSTINE WASHINGTON.
Germantown,near Philada, 5 August, 1777.
I congratulate you very sincerely on the happy passage of my sister and the rest of your family through the smallpox. Surely the daily instances, which present themselves, of the amazing benefits of inoculation, must make converts of the most rigid opposers, and bring on a repeal of that most impolitic law which restrains it.1
[1 ]It is remarkable, that, as late as the year 1769, a law was passed in Virginia prohibiting inoculation for the smallpox, and imposing a penalty of one thousand pounds on any person, who should import or bring into the colony the infectious matter with a purpose of inoculation.—Hening’s Statutes at Large, vol. viii., p. 371.
TO THE EXECUTIVES OF THE EASTERN STATES.
Headquarters,Valley Forge, 29 December, 1777.
Before I conclude I would also add that it will be essential to inoculate the recruits or levies as fast as they are raised that their earliest services may be had. Should this be postponed the work will be to do, most probably, at an interesting and critical period, and when their aid may be materially wanted.
TO MAJOR-GENERAL HEATH.
Head Quarters,Valley Forge, 22 January, 1778.
I particularly alluded to Henley’s, Lee’s, and Jackson’s Regiments; when I expressed my surprise that they had not been inoculated, as they had been so long in Boston. I hope that a very strict attention will be paid to that matter against the next campaign. We find upon a scrutiny that there are upwards of two thousand men to be inoculated in camp at this time.
TO MAJOR-GENERAL ARMSTRONG.
Head Quarters,Valley Forge, 27 March, 1778,
Some of the States have but lately drafted their men, others have proceeded but a very little way in recruiting, and some have not yet fixed upon the mode of completing their regiments. Even those men, that are already drafted or enlisted, are to be drawn together, most of them probably to be inoculated and all of them to be disciplined.
TO GOVERNOR TRUMBULL.
Headquarters,Valley Forge, 31 March, 1778.
Notwithstanding the orders I had given last year to have all the recruits inoculated, I found, upon examination, that between three and four thousand men had not had the small pox; that disorder began to make its appearance in camp, and to avoid its spreading in the natural way, the whole army [was] immediately inoculated. They have gone through with uncommon success, but are not yet sufficiently recovered to do duty.
…
Such of the levies as have not been inoculated need not be detained on that account. We have found it more convenient to inoculate them in and near camp. They can be of service in case of
emergency, and are not to be subjected to a long march immediately upon their recovery, which has always been much more fatal than the disorder.
School Vaccination Requirements: Historical, Social, and Legal Perspectives, Hodge and Gostin, 2002TO LANDON CARTER.
Valley Forge, 30 May, 1778.
Equally uncertain is it, whether the Enemy will move from Philadelphia by Land or Water. I am inclined to think the former, and lament that the number of our sick (under inoculation, &c.), the situation of our stores, and other matters, will not allow me to make a large detachment from this army till the enemy have actually crossed the Delaware and began their march for South Amboy,—then it will be too late; so that we must give up the idea of harassing them much in their march through the Jerseys, or attempt it at the hazard of this Camp, and the stores which are covered by the army that lays in it, if we should divide our forces, or remove it wholly, which by the by, circumstanced as the Quartermaster’s department is, is impracticable.
…Dr. Zabdiel Boylston of Boston may have performed the first inoculation on American shores in
1721. Ten years later, Dr. John Kearsley, Sr. of Philadelphia submitted himself and his medical students to vaccination. The doctor commented the he was “the first that us’d Inoculation in this Place.” The renowned Dr. Benjamin Rush used the cutting-edge Suttonian method for inoculation. This method used the clear serum from a developing lesion before it was filled with puss rather than the pustular material from another patient. This and other variolation methods were scientifically unproven and dangerous to individuals.
…Dr. Joseph Merry of Bath, England, asserted that inoculation with smallpox was comparable to incest, as it introduced into the human body a disease of bestial origin similar to syphilis.
As public health historian George Rosen has observed, local government in colonial America regulated physician inoculation even before Dr. Jenner’s historic discovery.84
84In April, 1721, ships from the West Indies brought smallpox to Boston. The Reverend Cotton Mather proposed to the physicians of Boston that they undertake inoculation. Only Dr. Zabdiel Boylston responded ... [The following year] the selectmen of Boston had insisted that Boylston should not inoculate without license and the consent of the authorities. By 1760, legal safeguards regulating the conditions under which inoculation could be performed had been set up.
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