The Battle Hymn of the Chicken Pox Troopers

Vicki Cobb
The Master Chef of Kids’ Hands-on Science

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​How does a virus cause a disease? A virus is not a complete living thing. It is like a free-floating nucleus of cell.  It doesn’t “grow” but under certain conditions it can make a copy of itself or reproduce.  It invades the cells of other living things to use the internal structure of the host cells to reproduce.   At a certain point, the number of new viruses in a cell is so large that the cell ruptures and dies, spilling out newly made viruses to continue the invasion to other uninfected cells.   

One virus we understand very well is chicken pox. Chicken pox is a very contagious disease that enters the body through the air and affects mostly children.  When I was young almost every kid got chicken pox but, since 1995, there has been a vaccine, which makes you immune and protects the spread of the disease to others.   Is there another way to explain how this virus works?  Suppose I imagine a virus could think, which it can’t. But,  imagination gives me the freedom to think differently. 

So I wrote a poem about an army of chicken pox viruses as they are about to attack a human being, maybe you, my reader.   A “battle hymm” is a chant or a song to rally the troups just before an attack. 
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The Battle Hymn of the Chicken Pox Troopers

Charge forward, fellow viruses!
Invade a cell or two
Then let us join together
And make a chicken pox on you.

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​Let cells try to fight us
No matter what they do
Red spots of our graffiti
Make a chicken pox on you

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​We make the top skin separate
And fill the space with goo,
Small, itchy blisters are a stage
Of chicken pox on you.

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​And when the blisters break, my friend
You think perhaps we’re through
But no.  Now there is a scab
For each chicken pox on you

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​ 
Scratch a scab so it comes off
Baring skin that’s raw and new,
A scar forever marks the spot
Of that chicken pox on you.

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The source? Chicken with fowl pox

​To the battle, fellow viruses!
We’re more noteworthy than flu
They just make you feel sick
We make our chicken pox on you!

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Meet your personal superheroes - your body's cells Superhero cells rally together to battle common childhood ailments in this series in which Vicki Cobb explains how your amazing human body heals itself and fights off intruders. Here's her book on yet another virus: Your Body Battles a Cold.

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