The last time I got a smallpox vaccination was in the mid-1970s (I cannot remember if it was in recruit or officer training, but it was more likely the former). The instrument used was a flat implement of steel like that of a safety razor blade, about 30 mm long and 5 mm wide, with a equilateral triangular "tooth" with sides of about 2.5 mm on one end. The medical assistant (MA) swabbed the vaccination site and applied a droplet of the vaccine to the "target area." The MA then stabbed the droplet and pierced the skin repeatedly with the tooth, maybe a dozen times. She then applied a bandage to the site, and I was off, in the finest traditions of the service, to physical training where all of us with recent perforations to our deltoids did push-ups.