vaccination

Meaning

Noun

• Inoculation with a vaccine, in order to protect from a particular disease or strain of disease.

Origin

• From vaccinia, a cowpox infection. Ultimately from Latin vacca. . 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.