Week 1 Shobha Raguraman "Variolation"

 (noun) the deliberate inoculation of an uninfected person with the smallpox virus (as by contact with pustular matter) that was widely practiced before the era of vaccination as prophylaxis against the severe form of smallpox. "The push for variolation in North America and Europe produced one other unexpected effect"  National Geographic Magazine (August 2020 Edition)

I chose this word because I thought it applied to our current situation with COVID-19. Although a completely different disease, I felt it sort of correlated to what was going on in the world around us.

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