According to the New York Times, it was on this date in 1954 that the first mass polio inoculations of children started in Pittsburgh. It must have started about the same time around the country, including where I lived. I remember going to the family doctor to get the polio shots. It took at least two shots, weeks or months apart. They hurt like hell and made your arm stiff for a week. Better than polio, of course.
Another nasty one was the inoculation against cholera, which I had to get in 1971 because I was going to Italy and cholera had broken out in Naples. It required two shots two weeks apart. I got the first one the week before I left the States and the second one in Paris. I made a complete fool of myself at the Parisian clinic where nobody spoke English (or admitted to it), but I finally got the idea that they wouldn't give me the shot unless I went into the bathroom and peed in a cup. The efforts of the man at the reception desk to get the idea across to me seemed terribly amusing to everybody in the waiting room.
Not much in the way of inoculations lately. I did get a tetanus booster a couple months ago when I hurt my thumb, but that's all. I don't do flu shots because they make me sicker than getting the flu, although I admit that after the last one I had three or four years ago, I was only sick for three days instead of ten.
Goodness, this must be maklng for fascinating reading. I'm outahere.
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