BCG (tuberculosis) vaccinations

[dynamicduo]

Please help to clear up a dispute! Our daughter remembers having a BCG vaccination, but insists that the needle didn't make contact with her arm. Instead, the vaccine was administered with a 'gun' from some distance away . Can anyone confirm that this was a method that was once used and maybe explain how it works?

[Panic Button]

My BCG was done with a needle, but when I worked abroad I used to have a cholera shot every six months.

I seem to remember that it was administerd by being fired at the skin.

[Ethel]

Your daughter is referring to the heaf gun, which can be used either for the preliminary test to see if the BCG vaccine is needed, or for the vaccine itself.

It works exactly as she describes. Whether she had the vaccine or just the test, I don't know.

[ermintrude35]

..we used to call this the "clock test" , it was as your daughter described, seem to remember having it on the inner wrist, it was a ring of small bumps that appeared on the skin,(like a clock dial) if the bumps appeared then you needed the injection, if no ring of bumps appeared then you did not need the vaccine...

[Panic Button]

No I remember the clock test, but that was done with a sort of bodger that crunched into your arm with a circle of pinpricks. (in the early seventies)

[Jillius]

I remember having it done on the inside of my forearm but it certainly makes contact with the skin and makes a noise like a stapler ! I think it just scratches the surface nad yes, it does leave little spots like a clock dial !!