What is Inoculation?
'''Inoculation '''(also known as [[variolation]]) is an historical method of making people [[Immunization|immune]] to [[smallpox]]. Unlike a [[vaccine]], inoculation uses infected material (for example scabs) from an infected patient. The benefit of inoculation is it gives the individual a less dangerous type of the [[virus]]. Another benefit of inoculation is the fact it has a death rate of 0.5% - 2% (as opposed to the 35% death rate of smallpox). Inoculation was eventually replaced after [[Edward Jenner]] discovered a [[vaccine]] against smallpox. == Historical uses == === China === [[China]] may have used inoculation in the [[10th century]]. The [[Emperor]] of China at the time lost his eldest son to [[smallpox]]. He wanted a way to help prevent smallpox from killing any more members of his family. He summoned many people from throughout the empire to attempt to find a cure to [[smallpox]]. A man carried out inoculation to [[Immunise]] his family. However, the source of the story was supposedly written 100's of years after the event. Inoculation was not widely used in China until the 'Longqing Emperor' in the 16th century. This was written by Yu Tianchi. Inoculation using the most deadly strain of the virus was banned from use in China to prevent high death rates. Inoculation is documented to have been used in [[India]] in the 18th century. It may have been used earlier than that, but there is no evidence to prove this. === Importation to Europe === The practice of Inoculation was first used in [[England]] after an [[ambassador]]'s wife witnessed it in [[Constantinople]].<ref name=Sammons57>Mark Sammons, Valerie Cunningham, ''Black Portsmouth: Three Centuries of African-American Heritage'' (Durham: University of New Hampshire Press, 2004), p. 57</ref> Her name was Lady Mary Wortley Montague and she was impressed by the benefits.<ref name=Sammons57/> She had lost her son, and bore scars of the virus herself. When an [[epidemic]] of smallpox occurred in England in 1721, she ordered that her daughter be in