JABS AND SCRATCHES

Searching for a blip on this very lazy day I found my "International Certificates of Vaccination" (yes, the plural is correct) of which this is a typical busy page. All on this page (mostly polio) were given by my dad who was always the Senior Medical Officer where we lived and made sure we were up to date especially as we spent time living abroad. I see the earliest one is December 1958, which wasn't long after polio vaccines became widespread, and I can remember being at school with children, and knowing older people who'd been disabled by polio. I had a teacher in primary school who'd had diphtheria and had a tracheotomy scar in her throat which fascinated us, and other pages in this document show smallpox, yellow fever and cholera vaccinations. We weren't vaccinated against chickenpox, mumps and German measles (rubella) all of which I had quite nastily, though I've never had measles and managed not to have whooping cough until I was 27! I wouldn't wish any of them on any children or their parents.

Back to my lazy day.