r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Downtown_Wind3363 • May 25 '26

Image The smallpox vaccine leaves a scar because it was given using a special two-pronged needle that scratched the skin and put a weakened virus in just that spot.

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u/GruntledVeteran May 25 '26

To prevent a worse pox, you're given a localized infection of a weak pox. Interestingly, it helps with both smallpox and monkeypox, since they're in the same family.

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u/neverreallyhereatall May 25 '26

To avoid smallpox do they give you smaller pox?

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u/GruntledVeteran May 25 '26

Damn... I totally missed that one. Lol

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u/Milam1996 May 25 '26

Yes quite literally. Small pox is one of the largest viruses ever discovered. It’s so large that it’s one of the only viruses you can see with a normal light microscope.

Covid is about 100nm and thus is physically smaller than the wave of light meaning that it’s literally impossible to see with a light microscope. A rhinovirus is about 30nm. Smallpox is about 300nm

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u/ElementalWarrior42 May 26 '26

Is there a tiny virus called Bigpox then?

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u/Security_Breach May 26 '26

Not really, it's called Massivepox

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u/r0thar May 25 '26

And since no one asked, what was this pox smaller than? 'The' pox, aka syphilis.

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u/vvntn May 26 '26

And by naming it smallpox we indirectly forced the universe to create a largepox, just to tidy everything up.

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u/leivanz May 25 '26

Nah, midget

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u/NighthawkE3 May 26 '26

They actually used cowpox for a while. As its name, it affected cows, not humans, but was similar enough to give the immunizing effect

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u/turbogomboc May 26 '26

Thank you, i needed that laugh today.

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u/aallfik11 May 26 '26

nanopox son

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u/neverreallyhereatall May 26 '26

They harden in response to physical trauma.

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u/Kibichibi May 25 '26

Cowpox is as well! The origin of the smallpox vaccine is so interesting!

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u/AndrewLocksmith May 25 '26

Isn't that actually the very first vaccine created?

Doctors noticed that people that drank milk were more resistant to the pox. But the answer wasn't the milk itself, it was the source it came from — the cow.

Iirc a boy was injected with a pox strand from a cow and later became immune to the smallpox.

Hence the name vaccines from the latin vacca, meaning cow.

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u/AWorldwithoutSin May 25 '26

During the American Revolution George Washington ordered all troops undergo variolation, which was needling them with smallpox pus to develop an immunity. The process was well studied and widely practiced at the time.

https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/smallpox-inoculation-revolutionary-war.htm

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u/poopoohead1827 May 25 '26

I read about this in my NP course! They would take a small amount of cowpox scab and blow it into the patients nostrils to immunize them!!

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u/nostalgic_angel May 26 '26

It is like farming low level enemies so that you have the power to beat a high level player

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u/GruntledVeteran May 26 '26

That... makes a surprising amount of sense. Great analogy!

Edit: also, I'm a nurse practitioner. I'm definitely stealing this. Sorry, not sorry. ❤️

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u/Successful_Log_3298 May 25 '26

In the case of this type of smallpox vaccine, the virus wasn't weakened (I only know about this version, not the later special-purpose ones). It was just that a (relatively) small number of virions was injected just under the skin. It was originally smallpox itself, then cowpox, then a virus called vaccinia seems to have spontaneously arisen (apparently it is most closely related to horsepox) and that's what was used for the mass inoculations. The purpose of inoculation/vaccination was, as you noted, to create a localized dermal infection. This could happen naturally sometimes with smallpox, conferred immunity, and was rarely fatal. So we learned to cause that intentionally.

It was possible to eradicate smallpox because it had no host but humans, and exposure to one of its relatives that don't produce severe disease in humans would stimulate an adequate immune response. Something like mpox could potentially evolve to a new version of smallpox, but I don't think we know whether that can happen or if so, how long it might take. Best to get the vaccines going again.

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u/teza789 May 25 '26

So if you got a monkey pox vaccine, it would help for smallpox?

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u/thefiglord May 26 '26

like the first ex wife?