Pox party
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Overview
A pox party is a party held by parents for the purpose of infecting their children with childhood diseases, here chicken pox virus. Similar ideas have applied to other diseases eg Measles but are now strongly discouraged by doctors and health services. The reasoning behind this now largely historical practice is that guests are exposed to the varicella virus and contract the disease, developing strong and persistent immunity at an age before disaster is likely, from Chickenpox or Rubella particularly.
Since 1995 Chickenpox immunisation has been routine in the U.S. and parts of Canada, but not the UK. (See Chickenpox
Efficacy: The vaccine adequately immunises 70-90% of recipients, attenuating symptoms in those who do later contract the disease.
Children have a milder course of the disease than adults, for whom the disease can often be fatal. (See Chickenpox)
Literary References
In The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Volume 1: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson, the second part of the book describes a pox party outside of Boston in 1775, where all those previously uninfected by smallpox are inoculated by variolation, or by inserting pustules from former victims into a cut in the skin. Of the thirty-nine people so treated, three later die.
Principal Complications of (Wild) Chickenpox
see also Chickenpox#complications
- Death or neurological damage: 0.002% of infected children.
- Shingles - a recrudescence of virus dormant in a nerve ganglion, with eruption in the distribution of that nerve, pain and commonly scarring. A proportion of people will retain the wild virus, of whom a proportion will develop shingles. The vaccine virus is not reported to do this.