# How did they manage to vaccinate everyone against smallpox? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 21, 2013, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906 "2013-05-21T07:35:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/21 "2013-05-21T19:34:01Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > The smallpox vaccine is made from a disease called cowpox, which rarely causes serious illness besides a single skin vesicle but is genetically close enough to smallpox to kick off an immune reaction. Just to show that there’s nothing so rare that someone on the SDMB won’t have a story about it: after I received the smallpox vaccine as a kid (I’m now 46), I had a bad reaction to it and instead of the small, contained version of the illness, I developed the fullblown version, icky lesions, high fever and everything. That was fun for my parents. (I don’t remember it myself, being but a slip of a babe at the time.) Still better than getting smallpox though! ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/22 "2013-05-21T20:04:19Z")
Submitted for your approval, circa 1802 [![](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_cow_pock.jpg) ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_cow_pock.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/23 "2013-05-21T20:12:26Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > Also, I have the vaccination mark that’s about the size of a dime and looks like a bunch of little pits. How old does that make me? What is the minimum age a person could be who has one of those? > [@nearwildheaven](#): > > 40ish. Routine vaccination was stopped in the States in the early 1970s. I got one in the 1950’s, yet the scar is no longer visible and it was never that large. My mother’s, obtained somewhere between 1910 and 1920, was more like the one Washoe describes, but I’d say it was closer to a quarter in size. It was impossible not to notice, and I was told that this was a typical scar of the era. I can only conclude that the appearance or non-appearance of a scar is not as reliable a indicator of age as you might think. Maybe a doctor can weigh in and tell us the real scoop. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/24 "2013-05-21T21:05:05Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > It helps if you’ve actually seen people suffer from smallpox. I seriously doubt that the privileged American anti-vaxers would exist in such numbers if they’d grown up with polio, measles, etc. People my parents’ age just do not get what the hell is wrong with these people, because they saw the effects of these horrible diseases - iron lungs, children born deaf from rubella, people sterile from mumps, in addition to the death toll. I take it your parents are my age (early Baby Boomer) or older when each new vaccine was a cause for celebration. In answer to the OP, there was an institutionalization for vaccination that doesn’t exist today. Want to enroll your kid in public school? He gets vaccinated, no questions asked. Drafted into the Army? You get vaccinated in boot camp. Dream vacation to Europe? Better get your shots or they won’t let you in over there. The 1954 field tests for the polio vaccine was [the largest clinical trial in history](http://web.archive.org/web/20080919033102/http://www.marchofdimes.com/aboutus/10651_11681.asp), with 1.8 million children participating. That meant the parents of 1.8 million children trusted the system (or feared polio) strongly enough to let their children be given a dose of something that hadn’t even been proven yet! ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/25 "2013-05-21T23:22:02Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > It helps if you’ve actually seen people suffer from smallpox. I seriously doubt that the privileged American anti-vaxers would exist in such numbers if they’d grown up with polio, measles, etc. People my parents’ age just do not get what the hell is wrong with these people, because they saw the effects of these horrible diseases - iron lungs, children born deaf from rubella, people sterile from mumps, in addition to the death toll. This. Polio example: See [this photo](http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/goldenage/wonder/Archive/Images/Iron%20Lungs.jpg) of an iron lung hospital ward – row upon row of people in iron lungs. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/26 "2013-05-21T23:27:56Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Polio example: See [this photo](http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/goldenage/wonder/Archive/Images/Iron%20Lungs.jpg) of an iron lung hospital ward – row upon row of people in iron lungs. That pic should be mandatory viewing for anti-vaxers. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2013, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/27 "2013-05-21T23:55:29Z")
I saw an even more horrific one recently. It was a wall of stacked iron lung chambers with children’s heads sticking out of it. You can’t see the chambers themselves; all you can see is three or four children’s heads coming out of a flat wall. It was pretty creepy. I’ll see if I can find it again. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2013, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/28 "2013-05-22T00:39:08Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > I saw an even more horrific one recently. It was a wall of stacked iron lung chambers with children’s heads sticking out of it. You can’t see the chambers themselves; all you can see is three or four children’s heads coming out of a flat wall. It was pretty creepy. I’ll see if I can find it again. Is it ( _shudder_ ) [this picture](http://blog.lib.umn.edu/trite001/pstl1082anatomy/2008/10/an_iron_lung.html)? ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2013, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/29 "2013-05-22T00:51:22Z")
Yeah, that’s the one! Thanks—I tried to find it and couldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2013, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/30 "2013-05-22T05:34:16Z")
I skimmed the responses here, and didn’t see a mention of the strategy that was used to wipe out smallpox. The World Health Organization would rush in when an outbreak had been identified and vaccinate everyone who lived in the area. This was called “ring vaccination,” and it made it unnecessary to vaccinate everyone in the world. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2013, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/31 "2013-05-22T07:13:22Z")
You’re right—that should have been brought up sooner. The fact that there’s no animal reservoir enabled that to be possible. With measles though, the game plan is to inoculate the entire planet, right? ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2013, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/32 "2013-05-22T07:20:15Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > You’re thinking of the oral polio vaccine, which is no longer used in the U.S. because immune-compromised people have contracted polio, or a related disease called vaccinia, from contact with someone who’d just had this vaccine. It’s still used in some Third World areas because it’s easier to store, transport, and administer. > > Nowadays, we don’t grow up with “shot marks” like they did in the past. I was vaccinated against smallpox but don’t have one of those scars on my arm. They use an oral polio vaccine in Japan. When my son was vaccinated, we were supposed to be very careful about washing our hands after any possibility of coming in contact with his feces for the next month if we had not been vaccinated for polio ourselves. I hadn’t been, as far as I know, since I’m an American born after the outbreaks that prompted near-universal vaccination. Those shot marks can be caused by other vaccinations, too. Older Japanese got tuberculosis inoculations that cause a circular scar. Younger ones have a grid of dots from the TB vaccine; the administration format changed sometime in the last 10–20 years. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2013, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/33 "2013-05-22T08:29:23Z")
The next disease to be eradicated will probably be [guinea](http://www.cartercenter.org/health/guinea_worm/mini_site/index.html) [worm](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_worm). [Polio eradication](http://www.polioeradication.org/) suffers from war and anti-Western attitudes in the last few countries where it’s endemic (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria). It also looks like there’s a breakout in Somalia and Somali refugee camps due to a lack of innoculation during the last few years. Let’s hope that can be contained. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2013, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/34 "2013-05-22T09:25:48Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > It helps if you’ve actually seen people suffer from smallpox. I seriously doubt that the privileged American anti-vaxers would exist in such numbers if they’d grown up with polio, measles, etc. People my parents’ age just do not get what the hell is wrong with these people, because they saw the effects of these horrible diseases - iron lungs, children born deaf from rubella, people sterile from mumps, in addition to the death toll. Agreed. People who’ve actually seen an epidemic aren’t going to listen to some anti-vaccination idiocy. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2013, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/36 "2013-05-22T13:51:43Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > I take it your parents are my age (early Baby Boomer) or older when each new vaccine was a cause for celebration. > > In answer to the OP, there was an institutionalization for vaccination that doesn’t exist today. Want to enroll your kid in public school? He gets vaccinated, no questions asked. Drafted into the Army? You get vaccinated in boot camp. Dream vacation to Europe? Better get your shots or they won’t let you in over there. > > The 1954 field tests for the polio vaccine was [the largest clinical trial in history](http://web.archive.org/web/20080919033102/http://www.marchofdimes.com/aboutus/10651_11681.asp), with 1.8 million children participating. That meant the parents of 1.8 million children trusted the system (or feared polio) strongly enough to let their children be given a dose of something that hadn’t even been proven yet! They’re actually a bit older - my mom’s little brothers were in the trials at the University of Pittsburgh. And yes, my grandparents were obviously so freaking excited about the idea of their kids _not getting polio_ that they were happy to let their sons be used as guinea pigs. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2013, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/37 "2013-05-22T15:03:49Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > 40ish. Routine vaccination was stopped in the States in the early 1970s. I was born in 1982 and got the smallpox vaccine in the Army in 2003 before I went to Iraq. So while it wasn’t routine when I was a kid, there are still quite a few people my age who got it. The scar is small but noticeable if you look for it. I’d say about as big around as a pencil eraser. Older guys who had the vaccine when they were kids still had to get re-vaccinated, but instead of 3-5 pokes with the needle, they got 10-15. So their scars are likely larger and more visible than mine. This wasn’t a shot in the arm with a syringe type vaccine. It was a big tattoo-like needle and they poked your shoulder a few times in a small area. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2013, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/38 "2013-05-22T15:14:38Z")
> [@brownsugar](#): > > I think it is a live virus .so once it is vaccinated to a person it almost helps every one near them Does it actually work that way? If you’re inoculated with a live virus, can you actually confer immunity on others by transmitting the ‘good’ virus to them? ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2013, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/39 "2013-05-22T15:42:27Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > Does it actually work that way? If you’re inoculated with a live virus, can you actually confer immunity on others by transmitting the ‘good’ virus to them? Well it’s a live virus and contagious, so I don’t see why not. People used to rub their cowpox on other people to confer their smallpox immunity to them. > **[Cowpox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowpox)** > > Cowpox is an infectious disease caused by Cowpox virus (CPXV). It presents with large blisters in the skin, a fever and swollen glands, historically typically following contact with an infected cow, though in the last several decades more often (though overall rarely) from infected cats. The hands and face are most frequently affected and the spots are generally very painful. > The virus, part of the genus Orthopoxvirus, is closely related to Vaccinia virus. The virus is zoonotic, meaning that it ... Fun fact: The term “pretty as a milkmaid” comes from the fact that milk maids often contracted cowpox, thus immunizing them against smallpox. In a time when quite a few people had smallpox scars all over, ladies who curiously never got them were considered quite the catch. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2013, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/40 "2013-05-22T16:23:54Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > Does it actually work that way? If you’re inoculated with a live virus, can you actually confer immunity on others by transmitting the ‘good’ virus to them? That’s the whole principle behind “measles parties.” Take a kid with a mild form of the illness, then send your kid over to play with him. Your kid gets (hopefully) the same mild form of the illness and you never have to worry about it. Wikipedia suggests [the practice is actually gaining popularity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pox_party)among antivaxers, despite the dice you roll with an uncontrolled exposure – your kid might come down with a far more serious form, or not gain immunity at all. Back when I was a kid, before the vaccine had been developed, our doctor took throat cultures when I came down with rubella, and then swabbed my sisters’ throats with them. Same idea. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2013, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906/41 "2013-05-22T16:48:59Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > That’s the whole principle behind “measles parties.” Take a kid with a mild form of the illness, then send your kid over to play with him. Your kid gets (hopefully) the same mild form of the illness and you never have to worry about it. > > Wikipedia suggests [the practice is actually gaining popularity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pox_party)among antivaxers, despite the dice you roll with an uncontrolled exposure – your kid might come down with a far more serious form, or not gain immunity at all. Now that’s really cruel. You have a choice between preventing the disease with a very low risk factor, or deliberately infecting the kid so he will get sick and spread it to others, both high risk factors. Cruel. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-manage-to-vaccinate-everyone-against-smallpox/658906.md?page=3)