1/21/2003: Normal smallpox vaccination

[Slithy_Tove]

Originally posted by Elspode
People who are pushing 50 (like me, for example) can remember when they got their polio vaccinations, I'll bet. For us, oral vaccines for polio had not yet been invented, and the process at the time involved being stuck multiple times with a needle over a dime to quarter-sized area of the upper outside bicep, just below the shoulder. It must have been semi-traumatic, because I got mine at age 4 or thereabouts, and I remember the experience pretty clearly.

Needless to say, it leaves a permanent scar, one that really doesn't look like anything else.

Nope, that's the smallpox vaccination scar, from the process that the images above illustrate. The polio vaccination doesn't leave a scar. I'm *cough*fiftyish*cough* and I've got the smallpox scar on my left shoulder.

It may seem antiquated, but I don't see any other way it could be. The smallpox vaccine is a 'live virus' vaccine, that contains a weakened form of the disease. So is the measles/mumps/rubella vaccine, and the oral polio vaccine. All of these work by producing a minor infection, and stimulating the body's immune system so that it will be able to throw off a real infection with the full-strength bug if you are ever exposed to it. Kids who get the MMR vaccine commonly have mild fevers as a result of the infection with the weakened virus. People who got the smallpox vaccination get a single 'pock', instead of pox over their whole body. Again, it's a minor form of the disease.

The picture may be ugly, but the vaccine works well. Smallpox was the first disease humans were ever able to eradicate completely from the face of the earth. Not a small achievement. I wear my smallpox scar proudly.

I hope it stays eradicated.