The vaccination left a impressive pock scar one bore as a badge of honor: I travel and I have been marked for travel.
The campaign led by the World Health Organization to eliminate smallpox was successful, thanks to intelligent planning and management, dogged persistence, and adequate funding.
1972 was the last year travellers were vaccinated, and 1990 the final year for the US military.
I thought I'd photograph a couple of my vaccination scars for the record and show them here.
But I looked in the mirror and surprise! The proud scars that had lasted over fifty years are now indistinguishable from marks and freckles and insect bites of various origins on on my upper arm.
I thought I was an anomaly.
So I checked my husband's arm that had long born its lemon-slice over years of marriage and lo! his scar had also gone the way of all flesh!
So the request is out:
"Seeking genuine smallpox scar to record as photo-relic on blog"
But wait, there's always Google.
I search "smallpox vaccination scars photos" I find Flickr answers the appeal.
Yes, there is indeed at least one site that has over a thousand photos of people displaying, voluntarily or nay, their shots.
A fine example of two scars on one arm:
It is worth a visit to this website to see everything from demure maidens smiling shyly at the camera to vamps-with-scars (check out the thighs).
(The photos are protected, they cannot be displayed here).
Perhaps they were used to show just how sexy it was to get vaccinated, or perhaps it was a forerunner of today's rage to tattoo....
https://www.flickr.com/photos/49602798@N04/11499125306/in/pool-677958@N25/
Not to put a damper on the matter, it appears that quite recently some old vials of smallpox virus were found refrigerated somewhere on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. The battle against smallpox may be over, but perhaps not the war.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
