As an adult, I still remember a clear picture of my mom’s scar from when I was a kid. The scar is high up on her arm, close to her shoulder. It looks like a ring of small holes around a bigger one. I remember being interested in this mark, but as time went on, it became less clear to me.
I thought that until I saw an old woman with the same scar in the same place. I was interested, but our short meeting didn’t give me a chance to ask any questions. Instead, I asked my mum about the scar, and she told me it was from the smallpox shot.
A serious skin rash and fever are signs of smallpox, a virus that used to spread through people. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention say that about three out of ten people who got the disease during its worst waves in the 20th century died.
In the United States, the smallpox virus was declared dead in 1952 after being injected into many people. In 1972, routine smallpox shots stopped being given. But for people who got the vaccine before the early 1970s, it left a clear mark: a scar that showed they were protected against smallpox.
Because of how the body heals, the smallpox treatment left scars. A special needle with two prongs was used to give the vaccine. The needle made several holes in the skin to get the vaccine to the dermis, which is the layer below the epidermis.
As the virus in the vaccine spread, round bumps appeared, which then turned into vesicles, which are small bubbles filled with fluid. Over time, these vesicles would burst and scab over, leaving the scar that everyone knows.
