Explain the difference between inocul;ation and vaccination

Question

Can any one explain the difference between inoculation and vaccination, so that I can explain this to my young son.

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

Have a look here. http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/apr2001/986402310.Im.r.html

Your young son must be interested in science.

Clive

Futurist · Answer

I'm the holder of a degree in Medical Microbiology & Immunology, and I'm singularly unimpressed by Art Anderson's answer. He manages to introduce a whole lot of tangential information without in any way differentiating between inoculation and vaccination.

Inoculation is the introduction of biological material into a medium such as a living organism, synthetic substrate, or soil.

Vaccination is the introduction of a vaccine into an organism to stimulate an immune response and thereby protect the vaccinated organism against similar infections in future.

So, Inoculation is a much more general term than vaccination. A vaccination is always an inoculation, but there are many circumstances in which an inoculation is not a vaccination.

One can inoculate soil with an organism in the hope that the introduced organism will break down toxins in that soil. One can inoculate milk curds with a fungus to produce a special cheese. One can innoculate a lab rat with an infectious disease so that one can later test the effectiveness of a drug against that disease. A microbiologist might inoculate a growth substrate with a microbe in order to produce more of that microbe.

Futurist · Answer

Inoculate is also used figuratively. A teacher might inoculate his students' minds with a healthy scepticism toward fundamentalist religion.

Explain the difference between inocul;ation and vaccination

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