Went to the supermarket (Safeway) for apples and got two shots; seasonal flu and H1N1. Because of my age is very probably that I have encountered a grandfather of H1N1 long ago but the pharmacist made it very easy (and only $15) to get the vaccine and i got it.
To appreciate how science has changed things, please see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
and javascript:void(0)
http://trailblazing.royalsociety.org/
Year 1755
Sir Hans Sloane gives a fascinating account of how the practice of variolation was introduced to England, this being an operation ‘performed by making a very slight incision in the skin of the arm’ and introducing into it ‘a dossil dipped in the ripe matter of a favourable kind of small-pox’. This would then induce a milder disease that protected against a more severe natural infection. Sloane describes how the procedure (reports of its efficacy had arrived from abroad) was first tested on six condemned criminals and subsequently on ‘half a dozen of the charity-children belonging to St. James’s parish’. Variolation became popular, especially among the upper classes, until it was eventually replaced by vaccination. The remarkable Sir Hans is also credited with ‘inventing’ milk chocolate.