Inoculation

INOCULATION (from Latin in—in and oculus—eye). 1. "Grafting into an eye or bud"—a well-known operation widely used in gardening. In former times, inoculation was understood as any therapeutic intervention consisting of the introduction of a medicinal or vaccine substance into the thickness of the skin or into the subcutaneous tissue by means of a prick with a needle, lancet, etc. At the present time, inoculation is called any infection, specifically—the moment of the introduction of an infectious agent. In particular, inoculation, or variolation, is called the artificial vaccination of smallpox to humans for the purpose of inducing immunity to this disease—a custom that has long existed in some countries of the East. In Europe, inoculation became known first of all in Greece and the Caucasus. In 1717, it was introduced in England by Lady Montagu, then it penetrated into France and other Western European countries. Inoculation was performed by means of a prick or a superficial incision of the skin with the subsequent introduction of the contents of variolous pustules, obtained from patients with a benign form of smallpox, and was accompanied by local (formation of a nodule, then a pustule) and general phenomena (fever, eruption of pustules over the entire surface of the skin). Inoculated smallpox usually proceeded favorably, however, a fatal outcome was sometimes observed (1–3%), as a result of which inoculation did not receive wide distribution as a preventive measure. At the present time, it is prohibited in all civilized countries and in its primitive form has been preserved only among some culturally backward peoples (in China, India, Central Africa). 2. Inoculation—the effect of parasitic worms, expressed in the fact that an adult parasite or a migrating larva infects the host organism with pathogenic microbes (Weinberg, Malvo and Lambinet, Mechnikov, Blanchard, Skryabin, and others). Thus, according to Mechnikov and Rheindorf, Enterobius vermicularis (pinworm) can contribute to the disease of appendicitis. According to Weinberg (experiments on monkeys), some cestodes can contribute to the development of typhoid fever (see also Human Helminthiases). 3. Inoculation—a method of infection with microorganisms by means of their introduction through a prick by an insect vector, for example, inoculation of malaria plasmodia by mosquitoes, trypanosomes by flies or bugs, leishmania by sandflies.