August 5: Vaccinations

Today I took my fourth and final typhoid vaccination pill. So now I am vaccinated for five years. Two weeks ago I got a polio booster and a Hep A shot. I need to get a second Hep A in six months and then I'm immunized against that -- forever.

This is just a note to say that I cannot describe for you the thoroughly irrational pleasure and (perhaps misplaced, given all that India may throw at me) security being vaccinated makes me.

(In a separate note: Am reading Medical Firsts by Robert Adler, and I was intrigued to read that the first small pox vaccine created the same amount of ridiculous, unreasoned reactions that modern day vaccines do -- including those who were convinced that introducing something from a cow was not merely an abomination but might cause people to grow cow parts. Though the most outspoken opponent, the Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus, simply stated that vaccines went against God's will to weed out the poor. )