By Mike Jacobs
Over eighty years ago I was marked with a sign that said I was safe. In 1940, I and many, many other children were vaccinated at the clinic in Stoke Road, Guildford. This left a scar high up on my left arm that was affectionately known by everyone as a ‘Dickie Bird’. The vaccination was to protect me against smallpox (variola), a disease that had decimated Europe throughout the middle ages. This process was followed a few weeks later by injections against Diptheria and Scarlet Fever. Since discovery of the process of vaccination, smallpox has been eliminated and is now considered exterminated.
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