September 23, 2014 Tuesday "vaccine"

Reading the Merriam Webster Dictionary Backwards

September 23, 2014   Tuesday

blog address: Readingthedictionarybackwards.blogspot.com

email: ishmaelish36@blogspot.com

You can find my other blog of pediatric anecdotes, poetry, artwork and literature at ishmaelish36.blogspot.com

vaccine: [ Latin vaca cow]  

     As a doctor and scientist (hopefully), so much depends on my/our ability to 'see.'  The inquisitive, creative mind is so important.  I think of this with Jenner, who noticed that milkmaids (girls who milked cows) were immune to the scourge of small pox.   I was going to say that I wonder why no one else had noticed this…but five other people in the preceding 20 years or so had tried this but didn't pursue it.

     These milkmaids had been exposed to "cowpox," a milder form of this blistering illness and had built up an immunity to small pox.  Why not expose other people to this mild form of cowpox so that they wouldn't come down with the small pox?
     Jenner took some of the fluid from a milkmaid's infection and inoculated it into an eight year old boy, James Phipps.   Amazingly, he then exposed the boy to small pox and he was immune.
    Who was James Phipps? He was the son of Jenner's gardener.
    The name of the cow that was involved was Blossom.