TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index I > Category: Inoculation

Inoculation Quotes (9 quotes)

The Devil: Reformers … will thrust you first into religion, where you will sprinkle water on babies to save their souls from me ; then it will drive you from religion into science, where you will snatch the babies from the water sprinkling and inoculate them with disease to save them from catching it accidentally.
In Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy (1903), 135.
Science quotes on:  |  Accident (92)  |  Baby (29)  |  Devil (34)  |  Disease (340)  |  First (1302)  |  Reformer (5)  |  Religion (369)  |  Save (126)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Snatch (14)  |  Soul (235)  |  Thrust (13)  |  Vaccination (7)  |  Water (503)  |  Will (2350)

A propos of Distempers, I am going to tell you a thing that I am sure will make you wish your selfe here. The Small Pox so fatal and so general amongst us is here entirely harmless by the invention of engrafting (which is the term they give it). There is a set of old Women who make it their business to perform the Operation.
Letter to Sarah Chiswell (1 Apr 1717). In Robert Halsband (ed.), The Complete Letters of the Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1965), Vol. 1, 338.
Science quotes on:  |  Business (156)  |  Distemper (5)  |  General (521)  |  Harmless (9)  |  Invention (400)  |  Old (499)  |  Operation (221)  |  Perform (123)  |  Set (400)  |  Small (489)  |  Smallpox (14)  |  Tell (344)  |  Term (357)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wish (216)

I am particularly concerned to determine the probability of causes and results, as exhibited in events that occur in large numbers, and to investigate the laws according to which that probability approaches a limit in proportion to the repetition of events. That investigation deserves the attention of mathematicians because of the analysis required. It is primarily there that the approximation of formulas that are functions of large numbers has its most important applications. The investigation will benefit observers in identifying the mean to be chosen among the results of their observations and the probability of the errors still to be apprehended. Lastly, the investigation is one that deserves the attention of philosophers in showing how in the final analysis there is a regularity underlying the very things that seem to us to pertain entirely to chance, and in unveiling the hidden but constant causes on which that regularity depends. It is on the regularity of the main outcomes of events taken in large numbers that various institutions depend, such as annuities, tontines, and insurance policies. Questions about those subjects, as well as about inoculation with vaccine and decisions of electoral assemblies, present no further difficulty in the light of my theory. I limit myself here to resolving the most general of them, but the importance of these concerns in civil life, the moral considerations that complicate them, and the voluminous data that they presuppose require a separate work.
Philosophical Essay on Probabilities (1825), trans. Andrew I. Dale (1995), Introduction.
Science quotes on:  |  According (236)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Application (257)  |  Approximation (32)  |  Attention (196)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chance (244)  |  Chosen (48)  |  Civil (26)  |  Complication (30)  |  Concern (239)  |  Consideration (143)  |  Constant (148)  |  Data (162)  |  Decision (98)  |  Depend (238)  |  Deserve (65)  |  Determine (152)  |  Difficulty (201)  |  Error (339)  |  Event (222)  |  Final (121)  |  Formula (102)  |  Function (235)  |  General (521)  |  Government (116)  |  Importance (299)  |  Institution (73)  |  Insurance (12)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Large (398)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Limit (294)  |  Mathematician (407)  |  Mean (810)  |  Moral (203)  |  Morality (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myself (211)  |  Number (710)  |  Observation (593)  |  Occur (151)  |  Outcome (15)  |  Philosopher (269)  |  Present (630)  |  Presuppose (15)  |  Probability (135)  |  Proportion (140)  |  Question (649)  |  Regularity (40)  |  Repetition (29)  |  Require (229)  |  Required (108)  |  Result (700)  |  Separate (151)  |  Still (614)  |  Subject (543)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Underlying (33)  |  Vaccine (9)  |  Various (205)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

I am patriot enough to take pains to bring this usefull invention [smallpox inoculation] into fashion in England, and I should not fail to write to some of our Doctors very particularly about it, if I knew anyone of 'em that I thought had Virtue enough to destroy such a considerable branch of Revenue for the good of Mankind, but that Distemper is too beneficial to them not to expose to all their Resentment the hardy wight that should undertake to put an end to it.
Letter to Sarah Chiswell (1 Apr 1717). In Robert Halsband (ed.), The Complete Letters of the Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1965), Vol. 1, 339.
Science quotes on:  |  Branch (155)  |  Considerable (75)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Distemper (5)  |  Doctor (191)  |  End (603)  |  England (43)  |  Enough (341)  |  Expose (28)  |  Fail (191)  |  Good (906)  |  Invention (400)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Pain (144)  |  Patriot (5)  |  Resentment (6)  |  Revenue (3)  |  Smallpox (14)  |  Thought (995)  |  Undertake (35)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Virtue (117)  |  Write (250)

I have patiently born with abundance of Clamour and Ralary [raillery], for beginning a new Practice here (for the Good of the Publick) which comes well Recommended, from Gentlemen of Figure & Learning, and which well agrees to Reason, when try’d & duly considered, viz. Artificially giving the Small Pocks, by Inoculation, to One of my Children, and Two of my Slaves, in order to prevent the hazard of Life… . and they never took one grain or drop of Medicine since, & are perfectly well.
By “clamour” he is referring to the public commotion in Boston reacting to his introduction of smallpox inoculation. Public statement in the Gazette (Jul 10-17), No. 85, 1721. As quoted and cited in Reginald H. Fitz, 'Zabdiel Boylston, Inoculator, and the Epidemic of Smallpox in Boston in 1721', Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital (1911), 22, 319.
Science quotes on:  |  Abundance (26)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Children (201)  |  Clamor (7)  |  Consider (428)  |  Drop (77)  |  Figure (162)  |  Good (906)  |  Grain (50)  |  Hazard (21)  |  Healthy (70)  |  Learning (291)  |  Life (1870)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Order (638)  |  Practice (212)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Reason (766)  |  Recommend (27)  |  Slave (40)  |  Small (489)  |  Smallpox (14)  |  Try (296)  |  Two (936)

If you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate. ... Choose science.
The Demon-Haunted World (1996), 30.
Science quotes on:  |  Child (333)  |  Choose (116)  |  Polio (8)  |  Save (126)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Want (504)

To prove that tuberculosis is caused by the invasion of bacilli, and that it is a parasitic disease primarily caused by the growth and multiplication of bacilli, it is necessary to isolate the bacilli from the body, to grow them in pure culture until they are freed from every disease product of the animal organism, and, by introducing isolated bacilli into animals, to reproduce the same morbid condition that is known to follow from inoculation with spontaneously developed tuberculous material.
'The Etiology of Tuberculosis' (1882), Essays of Robert Koch (1987), trans. K. Codell Carter, 87.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Bacillus (9)  |  Body (557)  |  Condition (362)  |  Culture (157)  |  Develop (278)  |  Disease (340)  |  Follow (389)  |  Grow (247)  |  Growth (200)  |  Known (453)  |  Material (366)  |  Multiplication (46)  |  Necessary (370)  |  Organism (231)  |  Parasite (33)  |  Product (166)  |  Prove (261)  |  Pure (299)  |  Tuberculosis (9)

When you inoculate children with polio vaccine, you don’t sleep well for two or three months.
As quoted without citation in Greer Williams, Virus Hunters (1959), 289. Webmaster found on the web that, allegedly, the quote is as told to reporters (11 Oct 1954) and reported for the Associated Press from Pittsburgh by Saul Pett—but Webmaster has not found such a print story for verification. The quote appears widely duplicated and circulated, but none found have a citation to a primary print source. Some specify weeks, others say months. Please contact Webmaster if you have a definitive reference to a newspaper article.
Science quotes on:  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Month (91)  |  Polio (8)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Two (936)  |  Vaccine (9)

Who could have believed that … the introduction into the human body of a small particle of matter from a cow’s udder might be the means of saving thousands of human lives? We learn from these and innumerable similar instances that the highest truths lie hid in the simplest facts; that, unlike human proclamations, nature’s teachings are not by sound of trumpet, but often in the stillest voice, by indirect hints and obscure suggestions.
From Address (Oct 1874) delivered at Guy’s Hospital, 'On The Study of Medicine', printed in British Medical journal (1874), 2, 425. Collected in Sir William Withey Gull and Theodore Dyke Acland (ed.), A Collection of the Published Writings of William Withey Gull (1896), 109.
Science quotes on:  |  Body (557)  |  Cow (42)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Hidden (43)  |  Hint (21)  |  Human (1512)  |  Human Body (34)  |  Indirect (18)  |  Innumerable (56)  |  Learn (672)  |  Lie (370)  |  Live (650)  |  Matter (821)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Obscure (66)  |  Particle (200)  |  Proclamation (3)  |  Save (126)  |  Small (489)  |  Smallpox (14)  |  Sound (187)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Teaching (190)  |  Teachings (11)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Trumpet (3)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Voice (54)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.