vaccination

Etymology

From vaccinia, a cowpox infection. Ultimately from Latin vacca (“cow”). Coined by Edward Jenner (1749-1823) in 1798. Jenner infected people with weakened cowpox viruses (Vaccinia), to immunise them against smallpox. It is now known that vaccinia and cow pox are separate conditions, but at the time of Jenner, they were considered the same condition.

noun

1. Inoculation with a vaccine, in order to protect from a particular disease or strain of disease.
   One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains. Isolating a city’s effluent and shipping it away in underground sewers has probably saved more lives than any medical procedure except vaccination. 2014-06-14, “It's a gas”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8891