SciFri Extra: Science Diction On The Word 'Vaccine'

Science Friday

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Life Sciences, Wnyc, Science, Friday, Natural Sciences

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🗓️ 17 March 2020

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

For centuries, smallpox seemed unbeatable. People had tried nearly everything to knock it out—from herbal remedies to tossing back 12 bottles of beer a day (yep, that was a real recommendation from a 17th century doctor), to intentionally infecting themselves with smallpox and hoping they didn’t get sick, all to no avail. And then, in the 18th century, an English doctor heard a rumor about a possible solution. It wasn’t a cure, but if it worked, it would stop smallpox before it started. So one spring day, with the help of a milkmaid, an eight-year-old boy, and a cow named Blossom, the English doctor decided to run an experiment. Thanks to that ethically questionable but ultimately world-altering experiment (and Blossom the cow) we got the word vaccine. Want more Science Diction? Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and sign up for our newsletter. "The cow-pock - or - the wonderful effects of the new inoculation" by James Gillray in 1802, featured at the beginning of this episode. (Library of Congress) Footnotes And Further Reading: Special thanks to Elena Conis, Gareth Williams, and the Edward Jenner Museum. Read an article by Howard Markel on this same topic. We found many of the facts in this episode in “Edward Jenner and the history of smallpox and vaccination” from Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings. Note: Most sources indicate that the figure in Gillray's "The cow-pock" cartoon is Edward Jenner, but there's been some debate. Other sources indicate that the figure could be George Pearson. Credits: Science Diction is written and produced by Johanna Mayer, with production and editing help from Elah Feder. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, with story editing help from Nathan Tobey. Our theme song and music are by Daniel Peterschmidt. We had fact-checking help from Michelle Harris, and mixing help from Kaitlyn Schwalje. Special thanks to the entire Science Friday staff.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everybody. We've got a new episode of Science Diction, and we're talking about a word I'm sure you've been hearing a lot lately, vaccine.
0:09.7	There's a really interesting history behind the word vaccine, and it has to do with cows.
0:15.8	So give yourself a short break from all the depressing news.
0:19.8	And listen, as Science Diction host Johanna Mayer tells the story of the word vaccine. yourself a short break from all the depressing news and listen as science fiction host
0:21.9	Johanna Mayer tells the story of the word vaccine.
0:27.5	Picture a fairy tale gone disastrously wrong and there are cows everywhere.
0:35.2	In one corner of the room, a man stares in shock at his own nose, which has sprouted
0:41.2	a tiny cow. Meanwhile, a woman wearing a bonnet barfs out a cow. The man sitting next door is
0:49.4	covered in lumps that look kind of like pimples, but are actually, in fact, a bunch of tiny
0:54.1	baby cows.
0:55.7	A cow is crawling out of another guy's ear. A woman is sprouting a pair of cow horns. It is a
1:01.7	cow paloosa. And sitting at the center of this whole cow cacophony is a remarkably cow-free woman.
1:10.8	She's white-knuckling her chair with one arm, and her other arm is in the grip of this really cold, nasty-looking man, and he's plunging a big, fat needle into her arm. She's getting vaccinated.
1:25.2	From Science Friday, this is science diction.
1:28.0	I'm Johanna Mayer.
1:29.3	Today, we're talking about the origin of the word vaccine.
1:54.6	This This truly wild anti-vax cartoon was published in 1802, and the message is clear.
2:00.7	If you get vaccinated, you are turning into a cow. Stay away. Obviously, we know that's not true, but it turns out our beloved bovine friends do have a lot to do with the origins of the word vaccine. And so did a person in that cartoon. The man smack dab in the middle of those vaccinated half-cow humans sticking the needle into that
2:20.0	scared woman's arm. His name was Edward Jenner, and he would go down in history as the inventor
2:26.7	of the smallpox vaccine. Smallpox. This disease caused tiny, painful postules to pop up all over your body. And it is tough to
2:39.6	overemphasize how devastating that disease was. Before we eradicated it, about a third of people
2:46.3	who got it died. The British used it as biological warfare against the Native Americans. Smallpox was
	...

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