Vaccination is the deliberate administration of a weakened, killed or related antigen to produce protective immunity against a specific disease before natural exposure occurs. As an ongoing medical practice it grew directly out of Edward Jenner's 1796 demonstration that prior cowpox infection protected against smallpox, and it expanded over the following two centuries into a routine preventive treatment covering dozens of diseases, from diphtheria and polio to measles and, more recently, human papillomavirus and COVID-19.
Facts
Connections
Associated With
Source Wikipedia: Poliomyelitis Vaccine
Source Infectious Disease Subspecialties Career Information
Discovered By
Source The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of HumanityRoy Porter
Long-Form Articles
Treats
Annual reformulated vaccines targeting the season's predicted circulating strains are the primary tool; effectiveness varies year to year with how closely the vaccine matches the strains actually circulating.
Source The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of HumanityRoy Porter
Vaccination prevents infection rather than treating active disease; Salk's 1955 inactivated vaccine and Sabin's 1961 oral vaccine are the historically relevant instances recorded on this atlas under the general Vaccination entity.
Source The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of HumanityRoy Porter
Vaccination prevents smallpox infection rather than curing active disease. Edward Jenner's 1796 use of cowpox material to confer immunity is the founding act of vaccination itself and of this atlas's own Vaccination entity.
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Sources
1. Wikipedia
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationTerminology section
Vaccination and immunization have a similar meaning in everyday language.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccination, lead section
Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease.
View the Source 2. The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity
Roy Porter, W. W. Norton and Company, 1997
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Infectious Disease Subspecialties Career Information
American College of PhysiciansAssociated With: Infectious DiseaseView the Source Wikipedia: Poliomyelitis Vaccine
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