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GCSE History · key term
In eighteenth-century smallpox prevention, deliberately introducing smallpox material into a healthy person to produce a usually milder infection and future protection. It could still cause death or spread smallpox.
Used by AQA and Edexcel
Paper 2
Deliberately introducing material from smallpox sores into a healthy person to produce an infection intended to protect them against future smallpox. Also called variolation.
Revise: Prevention of DiseaseInoculation, also called variolation, used material taken from smallpox sores. Practitioners introduced it into a healthy person, hoping to cause a mild case. In parts of Asia, dried scabs were powdered and blown into the nose.
Paper 1
An older method of preventing smallpox by deliberately introducing material from a smallpox sufferer into a healthy person. It could cause dangerous illness and spread infection.
Revise: Approaches to Prevention and TreatmentIn 1796, Edward Jenner demonstrated that cowpox could protect against smallpox. This was safer than the older practice of inoculation, which used material from smallpox sufferers and could cause serious illness or spread the disease. Jenner’s achievement came before Germ Theory: a successful preventive method could be developed without a full explanation of how it worked.
Distinguish the materials used: inoculation used smallpox material; Jenner’s vaccination used cowpox material.
Keep inoculation and Jenner’s vaccination distinct: inoculation used smallpox material; Jenner’s vaccination used cowpox material to protect against smallpox.
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