[Ads-l] 'herd immunity' antedating

[James Eric Lawson]

OED "Draft additions March 2020" for 'herd', noun 1, quotes a 1917 USDA
bulletin ("A. Eichhorn & G. M. Potter *Contagious Abortion of Cattle*")
for their first attestation of 'herd immunity'.

The term is used in a technical sense at least as early as 1893.

<extract>
These facts show something besides individual immunity. They demonstrate
the possibility of obtaining herd immunity. There is no doubt much still
to learn about this subject, but it may be safely assumed that with
hygienic surroundings, proper exercise, proper food, and by practising
the principles of breeding already enumerated, much can be accomplished
in developing animals with a more than ordinary power of resisting both
sporadic and epizootic diseases.
<title>Scientific proceedings of the annual meeting of the American
Veterinary Medical Association
<date>1893
<volume>30
<page>323
<sectiontitle>Report of Committee on Animal Food
<sectionauthor>D.E. Salmon
<url>
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112005945727?urlappend=%3Bseq=333
</url>
</extract>

-- 
James Eric Lawson

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