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perhaps it was known that hCG is present in the urine of pregnant women. and also that hCG induces ovulation in frogs. If injecting frogs with urine is cheape
by shoes_for_thee 8y ago
perhaps it was known that hCG is present in the urine of pregnant women.
and also that hCG induces ovulation in frogs.
If injecting frogs with urine is cheaper than other methods of detecting signaling horomones.. well, there ya go.
- giarc 8y agoI feel like chromatography for hCG would predate all these things.
- thfuran 8y agoAs a cheap clinical test?
- golergka 8y agoThe more I understand about science actually works, the more I can't see any reason for someone from 18th century or before not to believe in magic. Especially if he actually did experiments that would confirm this kind of connection - alchemist theories just look like the most logical explanation of such phenomena. (If you don't believe me, just ask Newton).
- lkrubner 8y agoWhy is that everyone in the village died of smallpox, except for the milkmaids, who never got sick? Is this some kind of milkmaid magic? Or is there something in the biographies of each milkmaid that causes them to become... ah, what is the right word? It's almost as if they are, ah, "immune" to smallpox? Is that possible? It's almost as if they get cine (aid) from the cows (vacca). One wonders if we could deliberately give this vacca-cine to people?
- swombat 8y agoThank you for this. Didn’t know this was the etymology of vaccine!
- bonzini 8y agoIt's not (the cow part is though; vaccine simply means "from cow").
- dunefox 8y agoNo, they're witches!
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoDo you have a source on the etymology? I've searched but couldn't find anything. Genuinely curious.
- typothrowaway 8y agoAt least wikipedia seems to partially agree (on the cow part), with citations I couldn't verify: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccinia#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccinia#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowpox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowpox
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoI meant on the etymology of cine / aid. Must have valued out when I wrote my previous comment.
- 1123581321 8y agoine/inus is a Latin possessive suffix that appears in many words. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/-inus https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/-inus
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoThank you, that's what I was after.
- fao_ 8y agohttps://www.etymonline.com/word/vaccination?ref=etymonline_crossreference https://www.etymonline.com/word/vaccination?ref=etymonline_c...
- mrighele 8y agoVaccine comes from the latin "vaccinus", a derivative of "vacca" (cow) and means "related to cow" or in this case more like "of cow origin". For example in italian "latte vaccino" means cow milk. So there is no -cine part, only a "-inus" suffix that simply means "related to" or "coming from". You can see that in a lot of words of latin origin. In fact the term "latin" itself comes from "latinus" which means "related to Latium" or "inhabitant of Latium" (a region in central Italy) Unrelated, but as for the origin of the latin term "vacca", it may come from vedic, with the meaning of "the animal that moos" Edit: made my answer more to the point
- currymj 8y agoexcellent exploration of this idea in the wonderful history book “The Secrets of Alchemy”. the author actually followed some alchemical recipes which were thought to be nonsense. yet under the right conditions (using iron implements, bad control of temperatures, impure materials) they produced results that must have seemed miraculous at the time — fluorescent materials, elaborate crystalline structures, and so on.
- jforman 8y agoIf I remember correctly frogs were an early model organism for studying fertilization because their eggs are large. Seems reasonable that would extend to early hormone secretion post-fertilization.
- Simple_Guy 8y agoWouldn't chickens be better, then?
- sowbug 8y agoChickens are big, messy, and smelly. They're also painful when they're mad.