pocks

Pocks is a term with several senses in English. In historical medical usage, a pock is a skin lesion produced by a disease such as smallpox, and the plural pocks could refer to the disease as a whole or to its skin lesions. The phrase the pocks was common in older texts to denote smallpox and its effects.

In medicine, smallpox (variola virus) was a highly contagious disease that caused fever, malaise, and a characteristic rash. The rash consisted of raised vesicles and pustules that often left pock-like scars upon healing. With the advent of vaccination and the eventual global eradication of smallpox in 1980, the disease is no longer endemic, though historical descriptions of pocks remain in medical literature and historical accounts.

Pock marks are scars left by pock lesions on the skin. They are most noticeable on the face and can vary from shallow to deep, sometimes producing a pitted or irregular appearance. Pock marks can result from smallpox or other diseases that leave crater-like scars, and they may be of cosmetic concern. Treatments are primarily cosmetic and may include dermatological procedures, though results vary.

Geology also uses the term pockmark to describe circular or elongated depressions on the seafloor. These seabed features form when gas or fluids escape from sediments, causing subsidence and cracking. Pockmarks are found in many of the world’s continental margins and can range in size from meters to tens of meters in diameter. They are of interest for understanding methane seeps, sediment dynamics, and marine ecosystems.

In current usage, pocks often appear in historical or descriptive contexts, while the modern disease term is pox, as in smallpox or chickenpox; pock marks refer to skin scars, and pockmarks refer to submarine features.