Large Molecules - Biotechnology and Your Health: Pharmaceutical Applications - page 34

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Large Molecules
INOCULATION: MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGH AND SOCIAL FAD
Several hundred years ago, inoculation parties were all the rage in the
Turkish countryside. Families gathered around an old woman
with nutshells full of scrapings from the skin of people who had
smallpox . The most likely participants were young women, since
catching smallpox and being left with a pockmarked face could
drastically reduce a young woman's chance of marrying well. Each
person to be inoculated would hold out an arm, allow a vein to be
sliced open, and then a small bit of the scrapings from the nutshell
would be placed in the open vein. Tradition held that the scrapings
would protect the person from smallpox, a disease that scarred and
killed large numbers of people who caught it naturally. Everyone
knew that those who survived smallpox were protected the next
time the disease appeared. The inoculation party was an acceptable
and effective, though somewhat risky, way to be protected against
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