Depending on when and where you were born, you might have a particular scar on your arm that everyone else around you also has. This, as many of you probably already know, is the smallpox vaccine.

Think of it as the very first vaccine passport, if you will: a scar that told everyone you had been successfully vaccinated against smallpox. And yep, you guessed it, it’s that very scar that my ...

PENGUIN PRESS, MARCH 2011 O ur skins record the histories of life’s close scrapes. One of the most common marks that humans carry is, we hope, bound for extinction: the nickel-sized cicatrix left by a ...

About 30% of infected people die from smallpox infection. People who recover from the infection are often left with permanent scars and sometimes blindness. The smallpox virus is classified as a ...

But the hallmark of smallpox was the pus-filled swellings of the skin that left telltale scars on those fortunate enough to survive. Many victims, however, lost their sight. Historically ...

Not so with smallpox. To create this vaccine, you begin with another virus that is similar to the smallpox virus, yet different enough not to bring on the smallpox disease once it enters your body.

The eradication of smallpox, undoubtedly one of public ... vaccination with cowpox was limited in clinical effect, produced a local scar indicative of response, and did not result in secondary ...