Everyone knows that injections that are supposed to confer immunity against a particular infection are called “vaccines,” but how did this name come about? It derives from the Latin “vacca” which, as you can well imagine, means cow; ergo, there seems to be no relation to biological preparations…
The history of the term “vaccine” is extremely curious: way back in 1796, an English doctor, a certain Edward Jenner, developed the first vaccine in history and it was against smallpox. Jenner realized that people who milked cows were immune to the smallpox virus, as they were “infected” with cowpox (similar to but much less dangerous than human smallpox).
Therefore, Edward had the brilliant idea of use the bovine virus to immunize men from smallpox: thus the first “vaccine” in history was born, in honor of the animal from which the virus came.
Today the term “vaccine” is used to indicate, in a more general way, all those preparations containing a pathogenic agent (or part of it) capable of inducing a protective immune response against a specific infection. They are considered one of the greatest achievements of modern medicine, thanks to which millions of lives can be saved and millions of diseases prevented.
And you, did you know the story behind the name “vaccine“? Let us know in the comments if you’d be interested in more stories about terms that are apparently associated with completely different things.