The entire household has assembled to watch a child being vaccinated against smallpox. Inoculation with material derived from cowpox lesions was still sufficiently novel to excite such interest. It had been first attempted in 1796 by Edward Jenner, who used the term vaccination because the Latin for cow is vacca and cowpox was called vaccinia.

La vaccination. Inoculation against smallpox in Paris in 1807 as shown in a painting by Louis-Léopold Boilly. The Wellcome Library, London. Via Wikimedia.

Spring 2020  |  Sections  |  Infectious Diseases