I remember clearly the first time I noticed a distinct scar on my mother\u2019s arm when I was a child, high up near her shoulder in an unusual pattern. It was a ring of small indents around a larger mark that immediately caught my eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the time, I don\u2019t really know why it held my fascination, but I remember staring at it and wondering what had caused such an odd-looking mark to appear on her skin. It was strangely intriguing to young me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over many years I forgot my childhood interest in that scar, though the scar itself never went away. It remained exactly where it always was, a quiet reminder of something my young mind once found curious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I might have asked my mother about the scar when I was small, and she likely told me its origin. But if she did explain, my brain didn\u2019t consider that information crucial enough to hold onto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the train about to depart, I didn\u2019t have the chance to ask her about the scar\u2019s origin. Instead, my curiosity brought back the long-forgotten memory, and I immediately called my mother for an explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To my surprise, she told me she had explained the origin to me more than once when I was younger, even if I now couldn\u2019t remember it. She said the scar came from her smallpox vaccination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smallpox was a viral infectious disease caused by the variola virus that once afflicted humans far and wide. Before eradication, it spread through populations, causing high fever, rashes, and deep skin lesions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This deadly disease killed roughly three out of every ten infected victims in major outbreaks, often leaving survivors with disfiguring scars across their body and even blindness in some cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, thanks to these efforts, smallpox was declared eradicated worldwide in 1980 following the last naturally occurring case in 1977.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because smallpox no longer circulates in nature, routine vaccination of the general population ended in the United States in 1972.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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