Humanity was shaken by a deadly and great disease in the 17th and 18th centuries; smallpox. The cure from this disease, which is known to have killed 3 out of 10 infected people and suffered from various disabilities in those who survived the disease, was achieved by vaccination.
The smallpox vaccine, which went down as the first vaccine developed in the history of medicine and science, buried this disease, which was known to have killed more than 300 million people in the 20th century alone, in the dusty pages of history after many years of vaccination studies. But this vaccine left a different and permanent mark on people’s arms than other vaccines. Let’s see why the smallpox vaccine left scars on the arms.
Why did the smallpox vaccine leave a permanent and large scar on the arms?
The smallpox vaccine was injected using a different method than the vaccines are now administered. Vaccines are usually injected using a single-pointed needle. Most of them go deeper than the upper layers of the skin; It is injected under the muscle tissues.
However, the situation in smallpox was different in both respects. The vaccine is injected into the dermis, which is the lower layer of the epidermis, which is the uppermost layer of the skin, with a fork-shaped, two-pointed needle; It is injected by making a few holes. The injected vaccine begins to multiply in this area and a lump called a papule forms. This lump turns into a vesicle, that is, cell tissue, which looks like a fluid-filled bubble, and then crusts and becomes a scar. This scar appears as a large scar with a distinct ‘frame’ around it and slightly raised in the middle.
Actually, we can think of smallpox vaccination as a scar. Because the body reacts with a similar logic. When a wound occurs on the skin, as in smallpox vaccine, the body reacts quickly to heal that area and repair the scar. After this procedure, since the area is a wound whose skin tissue is repaired, a scar remains in the area. While normal skin cells take time to develop, scar tissue may develop faster; This protective reaction of the body manifests itself as scars on our skin.
If you were born after the 1970s, the scar on your arm is not the smallpox scar
When we say vaccination scar on the arm, we all check our arms. And if you’re from the 1980 – 90 generation, you’re likely to see a mark on your arm similar to the recipe we’ve described so far. However, this trace is not a smallpox vaccine trace, but a tuberculosis vaccine trace.
There are two ways to tell which vaccine the scar on your arm belongs to, and one of them is quite simple. If you were born after the 1970s, the chance of the vaccine being smallpox is almost nonexistent. The reason is the success of a great vaccination campaign carried out jointly all over the world and the official eradication of smallpox all over the world.
Smallpox finally;
- in North America in 1952
- in Europe in 1953
- in South America in 1971
- in Asia Spotted in 1975
- Africa in 1977
. Then, the World Health Organization officially announced and approved the eradication of the disease (permanently and completely over the whole world) at its 33rd General Assembly on May 8, 1980. Smallpox vaccination was not applied after this date.
Only some countries, such as the United States, have chosen to store this vaccine in case smallpox could be used as a biological weapon. However, after that, there was no situation that required the administration of this vaccine again.
Another way to distinguish between the two vaccines is their images. Smallpox scar, with a clear ‘frame’; It is a scar that is quite large and raised in the middle compared to other vaccination scars, while a tuberculosis scar is a scar whose circumference is not clear and only looks like a small bump. So if you have a scar on your arm, you can also use this way to find out which one it is.
Source 1, Source 2, Source 3
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