Many people’s upper arms will always have scars from the smallpox treatment, which is a thing of the past. These small, round scars remind me of a time when smallpox was a big problem. Before the 1970s, a lot of people got the vaccine, which used a live virus to make people immune to the dangerous disease.
The process of getting vaccinated was pretty rough. After getting the shot, blisters would form where it was injected. These would finally heal, leaving a circular scar. Multiple needle pokes were used, which caused blisters that swelled up for a short time and then turned into a bump that looked like a mosquito bite. As the lump got bigger, it would leak fluid. Eventually, it healed into a scar that I can still see today.
This small scar might not seem important, but it has a lot of history behind it and shows how far science has come. The smallpox vaccine is a thing of the past, but it has left a lasting influence that can be felt even now.
