General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSo, if you have one of these on your upper arm or thigh,
it's OK, Boomer! You're part of a generation that was alive before smallpox was eradicated through universal vaccination. Vaccination against smallpox ended in the US in 1972.
Take that, anti-vaxxers!
OneBlueDotBama
(1,385 posts)MineralMan
(146,333 posts)OneBlueDotBama
(1,385 posts)Is thrilled to know, she's a fancy gal....
rzemanfl
(29,570 posts)thigh. I was privileged to look at a few of those.
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)All the girls I knew had the scar on their upper arm.
George II
(67,782 posts)...whether to get her vaccinated in the butt or the arm. Back then children were asked to show the scar when they entered school to prove they were vaccinated. So our parents decided to have the shot in her arm to avoid embarrassment.
Not all children got those scars - I didn't.
rzemanfl
(29,570 posts)MuseRider
(34,125 posts)when given on the thigh. I don't know why. Mine is on my thigh because it was that or no vaccination because my father thought those scars were ugly and no man would ever marry me.........................I KNOW! Disgusting. It would be better that I get small pox than scar my chances to be married. Lordy how I ever got out of that house fast enough.
Mariana
(14,861 posts)I remember when my daughter noticed them, and realized she doesn't have one.
Actual smallpox scars are horrible.
Mossfern
(2,557 posts)MineralMan
(146,333 posts)Some had a severe reaction and have a prominent scar. Mine looks a lot like the one in that photo.
Mossfern
(2,557 posts)But I did have mumps and measles and rubella.
Our parents used to expose us deliberately - mumps for boys, German measles for girls - not so much for regular measles.
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)They had the diphtheria shot when I was very young, so there's another childhood disease that has been eradicated.
Vaccination saves lives!
Butterflylady
(3,549 posts)I had to get some type of shot before going to visit my son who had a brand new baby. The shot had something to do with whooping cough they told me. It was about 8 years ago so I don't remember.
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)It's part of the DPT vaccination. (Diphtheria, Pertussis (whooping cough), and Tetanus)
There wasn't back when I was a child, though.
Backseat Driver
(4,399 posts)the story is that the family was saved by eating a batch of potatoes sprayed with DDT.
kimbutgar
(21,211 posts)But dont think I had a small pox shot.
DarleenMB
(408 posts)the vaccine was in a small ampoule and they broke off the end and "stabbed" you several times. Mine, and those of everyone I know, were circular. And mine has disappeared as well. Strange because all of my other scars are there for life.
MicaelS
(8,747 posts)Made a neat pattern on my arm. Had a nice big scab, too.
tblue37
(65,490 posts)Wounded Bear
(58,721 posts)still a light shadow scar, though. At least I think that is it.
redstatebluegirl
(12,265 posts)Walleye
(31,062 posts)Leith
(7,813 posts)and proud of it. Also, I don't have and never did have polio. Take that, anti-vaxxers!
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)either Smallpox or Polio vaccines. That's part of the problem.
Arkansas Granny
(31,532 posts)During outbreaks in the summertime, swimming pools would close and parents were very wary about kids playing together. The pictures of kids in iron lungs is something that stays with you for a long time.
Hestia
(3,818 posts)Butterflylady
(3,549 posts)Whatever is wrong with them.
I'm being kind here. I was going to post another word.
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)csziggy
(34,138 posts)My original vaccination never really "took" and I never got the scar. I didn't realize that was considered a problem until I was getting boosters and stuff for possibly traveling abroad my first year of college. Since I didn't have the scar as proof of my original vaccination, I had to do it again. By then, it was and injection that didn't leave that distinctive scar.
phylny
(8,389 posts)later. I did get it in my left arm, but also did not have a scar.
csziggy
(34,138 posts)I guess either it took enough to give me immunity or I was very lucky. By the time I started school, the big polio scare was over so I guess I was lucky since it was in our neighborhood.
hvn_nbr_2
(6,490 posts)They tried six times and none of them took. So I got some kind of waiver to start first grade.
yonder
(9,678 posts)Butterflylady
(3,549 posts)SunSeeker
(51,728 posts)True Blue American
(17,989 posts)A white hole.
SunSeeker
(51,728 posts)It's faded quite a bit and, um, filled in as I've aged and gained weight .
True Blue American
(17,989 posts)Look as bad as it used to!
roamer65
(36,747 posts)About the size of a dime.
Leading edge of GenX.
CaptYossarian
(6,448 posts)JCMach1
(27,574 posts)How Gen X is that? Lol
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)Arkansas Granny
(31,532 posts)MineralMan
(146,333 posts)In the early days of smallpox vaccinations, there was a huge uproar from people who were opposed to it. Books were written against vaccination. There have always been stupid anti-vaxxers around, I guess.
Wounded Bear
(58,721 posts)God put them diseases out there to punish sinners, you know.
Arkansas Granny
(31,532 posts)I wasn't bad enough to get chicken pox and I got vaccinated for the rest of them.
Arkansas Granny
(31,532 posts)instrument that scratched the skin until it drew blood and then applied some of the vaccine and put a bandaid over it. It made for a really ugly scab that took several days to fall off. I went to a very small rural (one room) school. Everyone got vaccinated.
True Blue American
(17,989 posts)Or the scar?
Squinch
(51,021 posts)a son of a bitch to leave a scar like that.
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)The live vaccinia virus that is used to vaccinate people causes a boil-like pustule where it is injected. The pustule is bad enough to leave a scar, which we all seem to have. We don't remember it because we were too young, but it is a nasty little sore. It's worse for some people than others, and can leave a very visible scar on some people.
Squinch
(51,021 posts)Butterflylady
(3,549 posts)Squinch
(51,021 posts)Greybnk48
(10,176 posts)Then, for some reason, when we moved to Wisconsin, they vaccinated our entire high school in 1964 or 1965, whether you had been vaccinated before or not.
I can't find either one, but my doc can find it.
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)The word "vaccination" comes from the smallpox vaccination, which was actually an deliberate infection of vaccinia, the virus that causes cowpox. It happened because Edward Jenner noticed that 18th century milkmaids didn't contract smallpox, because they had caught cowpox from the cows they milked. So, he tested the idea of infecting people with cowpox, which is a mild infection in humans. It worked, and there you have it. The vaccination you got was a live cowpox virus, which caused a pustule on your upper arm that ended up causing a scar.
luvs2sing
(2,220 posts)I developed severe eczema when I was an infant. Our doctor refused to immunize me. Apparently there is a risk for people with eczema to develop a serious condition. He said my chances of dying or losing an arm because of the vaccine were much higher than the chances of getting smallpox. I remember having to get a letter from the doctor at the beginning of every school year stating this.
I remember the polio vaccine, both liquid and injection, measles, and German measles. I had mumps three times..once on both sides, then once on each side. I never had chicken pox even though I was exposed several times. When that vaccination became available, I got it.
peggysue2
(10,842 posts)I recall my mother insisting on the thigh shot because of the scarring, easier to hide. And yes, it's still there. Large and white against my pinky-pink skin.
True Blue American
(17,989 posts)peggysue2
(10,842 posts)Just makes it all the more obvious. Not that I tan very well anyway. I'm more prone to sunburn/sun-poisoning and massive peeling. I'm paying for the sins of my youth and all those summers spent at the Jersey shore. Just went through my first round of skin cancer and reconstruction.
Guess Coppertone back in the day wasn't all that good.
Smelled good though.
MontanaMama
(23,337 posts)I was born in 1964 so I guess I'm either the last of the Boomers or beginning of the Gen Xers.
CottonBear
(21,596 posts)https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Jones
Generation Jones
Language
Watch
Edit
Generation Jones is the social cohort[1][2] of the latter half of the Baby boomers to the first years of Generation X.[3][4][5][6] The term was first coined by the cultural commentator Jonathan Pontell, who identified the cohort as those born from 1954 to 1965 in the U.S.[7] who came of age during the oil crisis, stagflation, and the Carter presidency, rather than during the 1960s, but slightly before Gen X.[8] Other sources place the starting point at 1956[9] or 1957.[10][11] Unlike baby boomers, most of Generation Jones did not grow up with World War II veterans as fathers, and for them there was no compulsory military service and no defining political cause, as opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War had been for the older boomers.[12] Also, by 1955, a majority of U.S. households had at least one television set,[13] and so unlike Baby boomers born in the 1940s, many members of Generation Jones have never lived a world without television similar to how many members of Generation Z (19972012) have never lived in a world without personal computers or the internet, which a majority of U.S. households had by 2000 and 2001 respectively.[14] Unlike Generation X (19651980), Generation Jones was born before most of the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and '70s.
The name "Generation Jones" has several connotations, including a large anonymous generation, a "keeping up with the Joneses" competitiveness and the slang word "jones" or "jonesing", meaning a yearning or craving.[15][16][17][18] It is believed[by whom?] that Jonesers were given huge expectations as children in the 1960s, and then confronted with a different reality as they came of age during a long period of mass unemployment and when de-industrialization arrived full force in the mid-late 1970s and 1980s, leaving them with a certain unrequited "jonesing" quality for the more prosperous days of the past.
The generation is noted for coming of age after a huge swath of their older brothers and sisters in the earlier portion of the baby boomer population had come immediately preceding them; thus, many complain that there was a paucity of resources and privileges available to them that were seemingly abundant to older boomers. Therefore, there is a certain level of bitterness and "jonesing" for the level of freedom and affluence granted to older boomers but denied to them.[19]
The term has enjoyed some currency in political and cultural commentary, including during the 2008 United States presidential election, where Barack Obama (born 1961) and Sarah Palin (born 1964) were on the presidential tickets.
GreenEyedLefty
(2,073 posts)and I consider him a Gen X who happens to remember the moon landing. I'd never heard of Generation Jones. Thanks for sharing!
CottonBear
(21,596 posts)I remember watching Nixon resign on live TV.
I watched the nightly news with Walter Cronkite reporting on the war in Vietnam.
I watched Laugh In, Ed Sullivan, Captain Kangaroo, Romper Room, all of Normon Lears TV shows, M*A*S*H, the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family, among others.
I saw the original Star Trek in mid-1970s reruns.
I saw Star Wars in the movie theater!
MontanaMama
(23,337 posts)I never knew!! I like and identify with all of it except the Sarah Palin part.
ETA: I can remember my dad worrying out loud that I might be part of a generation that wouldn't do better than their parents due to many factors, a few of which are cited in the article you posted. This was well before Generation Jones was coined. Turned out I did okay after all... but my dad was so wise...he was my hero.
CottonBear
(21,596 posts)I feel the same way about Alaska Barbie.
Fortunately, though, Michelle and Barack Obama more than make up for her being included in our generation.
GoCubsGo
(32,095 posts)I actually heard that term before I heard "Generation Jones" being used.
Maeve
(42,288 posts)And my maiden name was Jones!
CottonBear
(21,596 posts)I love DU! I always learn something (usually many things) new every day!
Response to MontanaMama (Reply #30)
GoCubsGo This message was self-deleted by its author.
Pacifist Patriot
(24,654 posts)Military personnel and their dependents deployed overseas received the vaccine past 1972. Not sure when they stopped, but I got it in 1974. When we rotated back state side, I remember kids in gym class fascinated by it.
Skittles
(153,202 posts)my arms would be sore!
OhZone
(3,212 posts)benld74
(9,910 posts)Seems a very small delicate wire, of unknown composition ALSO popped up during the procedure,,,
Strange men in dark clothes and dark overcoats have appear on my street,,,,,,
iscooterliberally
(2,863 posts)Although I was too young to remember, the doctor told my mom that about 1 in 2 million people would come down with cow-pox as a result of the vaccine. Guess who has two thumbs and got cow-pox? This guy! My mom told me I developed a huge lump under one of my arms that looked like I was growing an udder .
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)Actually, everyone who got the smallpox vaccine and it worked, got a mild case of cowpox. That's what immunizes you against smallpox. For most people it's just a pustule at the site of the vaccination that soon drains, but leaves that characteristic scar. You got a more serious case of cowpox, but survived it, so you certainly got the immunity.
iscooterliberally
(2,863 posts)I'm not much of a gambler though. Besides if I had won the lottery as an infant the money would probably be spent by now. I'd rather be immune to small pox. Money problems can be solved much easier than health problems that's for sure.
rickyhall
(4,889 posts)FYI: I had strep twice, measles, mumps & chicken pox. Haven't been sick in decades.
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)It fades away, in those cases, through normal skin cell replacement. Most, however, get a more serious pustule from the vaccination that leaves a permanent scar. Mine is hard to find, but it's there.
cannabis_flower
(3,768 posts)Haven't been able to find mine in years. Not sure if the scar just disappeared or if I stretched it out so much it isn't visible or what.
Heartstrings
(7,349 posts)So as not to be seen in formal wear...
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)Really. On the other hand, I don't remember finding those scars on girls I dated to be any sort of problem. We all had them, so...they're sort of like nipples. Everyone has at least two. Some have an extra one or two, but I didn't know that until I was 17, though. Navels, too.
rzemanfl
(29,570 posts)TNNurse
(6,929 posts)Anybody read "Outlander"?? Had not thought of scar for years.
Mosby
(16,366 posts)My dr told me and my sisters that if we scratched it we would get a scar. I didn't scratch mine but it itched like crazy.
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)I'm sure I scratched mine.
One of my earliest memories is of having chickenpox and my mother making little mittens of rabbit fur for our little hands so we couldn't scratch. I actually found them in a box a few years ago in my parent's house. At the time, my parents raised rabbits to eat and sell, so she had the materials on hand. My dad could tan leather, so I suppose he did that to rabbit pelts, too.
Mosby
(16,366 posts)Aristus
(66,467 posts)MineralMan
(146,333 posts)Dem2theMax
(9,655 posts)I guess it must have been something they did back in the olden days.
abqtommy
(14,118 posts)and vaccinations. The doctor used a piece of broken glass that had been sitting in a sterile solution to vaccinate me. I thought it was cool and thrifty too. I approve of vaccinations and I hope to see a
national law that puts the antis in their place.
GreenEyedLefty
(2,073 posts)My mom has one, though. A very distinct one.
Thank you to everyone who was vaccinated against smallpox. You made it so my generation and the ones to follow did not need it, too.
roamer65
(36,747 posts)Not doing so makes smallpox a viable bio weapon.
dawn5651
(604 posts)MineralMan
(146,333 posts)gopiscrap
(23,765 posts)MineralMan
(146,333 posts)LOL!
Skittles
(153,202 posts)yup! I can still see it!
dhol82
(9,353 posts)I was born in a DP camp in Germany and I guess they were very thorough about making sure the scarification was obvious.
We emigrated here in 1950 and I still have the little yellow booklet with the vaccinations noted.
As a side note, when I visited Pakistan a couple of years ago, I had to get a polio vaccination to go back into China. Got a new little yellow booklet. No new scar, though.
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)Then, when I was assigned to a base in Turkey, I got some more. Typhoid, Typhus, Cholera and even a Plague vaccination. All at once. Hurt like the dickens for about a week. I found out later that the plague and cholera vaccinations were experimental, so I guess I was an involuntary test subject.
dhol82
(9,353 posts)burrowowl
(17,653 posts)little needle no pain until 10 seconds later it felt like your arm would burn off.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)We called it the "human test".
Only humans had them.
You could tell the aliens, because they didn't have them.
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)I read several years ago that some body modification folks have their navels surgically removed. Now, that's dedication. I also remember when girls who showed their navels in a two piece swimsuit were not "nice girls." Me? I thought they were very nice, indeed. My HS girlfriend, back in 1962, had a bikini that definitely showed her navel. Cute, and very nice.
TalenaGor
(1,104 posts)Born 1968!
trackfan
(3,650 posts)I can't even find it now, and am not even sure which arm it was on. My mother's, however, looked like someone took a bottle cap and gouged her with it.
Shrike47
(6,913 posts)Now, his scars were scars!
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)They were all much older than me.
Danmel
(4,928 posts)I had the mumps and chickenpox as a child but got the measles and german measles vaccines, along with polio of course.
I remember the health department ads for the rubella vaccine. They were animated and featured a little girl carrying a "rubella umbrella. " I must have been 8 or 9 years old.
Now I work for a state elected official and spend a considerable amount of time fending off anti vaxxers.
hunter
(38,328 posts)... and a couple of surgeries to remove mutations caused by such, the kind where you wait for the biopsy results in quiet terror.
In the bad old days people got tans, people thought the sun was good for kids. I was more prone to severe sunburns and freckles.
I also have a lot of Chicken Pox scars. I got chicken pox bad, and everywhere. I got the mumps to.
My kids came down with chicken pox just a few weeks before the vaccine was released, unlucky for them, almost as much as it was for me. Believe me, my wife and I shared their suffering.
I'm glad they live in a world where smallpox doesn't exist and vaccines protect them from other awful diseases. They also know that sunshine can be dangerous.
Captain Zero
(6,826 posts)He thought it was that important that it got out there and was affordable.
While today, Trump officials are claiming there needs to be delays to get investors before developing it, and already making statements it may not be affordable for everyone. Assholes.
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)The government covered the cost of immunizing all children.
Socialized medical care at work, even in the 1950s, when that started.
mainstreetonce
(4,178 posts)The vaccination cost $3.00 and she was only paying once.
So the oldest was vaccinated.She put a needle in the scar and vaccinated the other children herself.
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)Needs must...
sdfernando
(4,947 posts)I did when I was younger. It faded over the years and is totally gone now.
11 Bravo
(23,926 posts)meow2u3
(24,774 posts)pink-o
(4,056 posts)He thought it would be less conspicuous, but the scar is huge and really puckered. Doesn't matter: I never got bloody small pox. AND....I've had vaxxes against Hep A and C, Shingles, Pneumonia and whatever else they wanna give this old Boomer to help her live a long and healthy life! Whatever the oppo of an anti-vaxxer is---that's me!!
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)Last thing I want to die of is some preventable disease.
solara
(3,836 posts)but it disappeared. I remember the polio vaccine was a blue liquid on a sugar cube (perhaps a sign of things to come haha)..I think I got shots for measles and mumps but, maybe not since I still got them.. and chicken pox.
I don't get the whole anti-vaccine thing.. seems awfully dangerous to me. I remember, years ago, they gave my newborn son all the shots we've been talking about except maybe small pox.
Old Terp
(464 posts)She had those metal canes and was able to move around rather fast. She was a beautiful person.
JustAnotherGen
(31,907 posts)I was born in 1973 in Weisbaden West Germany at a military base. I have it -but really . . . nobody I went to school with in my grade -had one. Only the Officers' brats born abroad.
Generation X-er - X Marks the Spot!
El Supremo
(20,365 posts)But the second one didn't take.
I also had the Saulk and Sabin polio vaccinations. The first on was a shot and the second was a sugar cube. We didn't have Chicken Pox vaccines and I caught it. I don't remember about mumps, measles but I get a TDAP every ten years.
Greybnk48
(10,176 posts)and had two small pox vaccines on my left arm, about 10 years apart.
IronLionZion
(45,541 posts)The_REAL_Ecumenist
(729 posts)My mother inherited the tendency to form keloids from her father but luckily, I didn't. BTW, I'm a member of the "BABY BUST" generation.
Glorfindel
(9,736 posts)Got the one on the left arm when I was a kid. Got the other after I was drafted in 1966. The army didn't give a shit if I already had one. I have also had the Salk polio vaccine and the Sabin polio vaccine twice. I'll probably live forever! I actually remember when there was a smallpox scare in the county I live in. It was in (I think) 1953. The elderly neighbor lady down the road hung a bag of asafoetida around her neck and swore it would keep the smallpox away from her. It smelled horrible, but she didn't catch smallpox!
ProudMNDemocrat
(16,794 posts)Got it in 1957.
mwooldri
(10,303 posts)Though it's an outside and not an innie and it was from the BCG (tuberculosis vaccine) injection we all got during the first year of secondary school.
badhair77
(4,221 posts)It was a right of passage to get to first grade, just like the older kids did. I vaguely remember having a clear plastic shield over it for the first few days to protect the area.
Susan Calvin
(1,649 posts)I have a very clear memory of getting it too. But now I can't find it. Boo.
Cirque du So-What
(25,989 posts)but couldnt find it on my upper arm when I wanted to show it to a grandchild. I know it was there for a long time.
Maeve
(42,288 posts)And was therefore (usually) a slave. (What can I say, I read some weird books back in the day )
Hekate
(90,837 posts)...but hers was placed on her inner thigh. When I was at university, smallpox was still endemic in some parts of the planet -- one of our foreign exchange students, scarred all over -- was a survivor. Young women at my university who came from ethnicities prone to keloid scars frequently had a rectangle of 4 prominently raised scars on their upper arm, visible sign of their protection.
It felt creepy when my own toddlers didn't get the vaccine. Now (to my eternal horror) my 44 year old daughter is an anti-vaxxer and her 3 sons are unvaccinated.
gademocrat7
(10,672 posts)GoCubsGo
(32,095 posts)Same general shape, but mine is raised. I scar fairly easily. Might as well have put it on my left arm. My mole would have some company.
mopinko
(70,239 posts)yeah, i was that kid.
MineralMan
(146,333 posts)That sucker itched, too.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)I got my smallpox and anthrax vaccine on the same day back in 2003. Same arm. Holy crap that hurt.
The corpsman giving the injections kept saying "don't worry about the rumors. it's perfectly safe. Umm... but don't handle food for the next 48 hours."
Polybius
(15,497 posts)Not me though, I'm an Xer.
Demovictory9
(32,475 posts)Flaleftist
(3,473 posts)MineralMan
(146,333 posts)It was done by putting a liquid containing the live cowpox virus on your skin, then piercing or scratching the skin to cause an actual infection. You developed a boil-like pustule from the cowpox virus. It itched, and most children scratched it, making the infection worse. In any case, the pustule was enough to cause that characteristic scar.
Flaleftist
(3,473 posts)wnylib
(21,621 posts)two similar looking scars on my face, one at the tip of my nose, and the other at one end of an eyebrow. They are from chicken pox because there was no vaccine for it back then. Neither scar is very noticeable, fortunately.
Sloumeau
(2,657 posts)I wonder how many anti-vaxxers would suddenly forget that they were anti-vaxxers.