History
In 1890 William Stewart Halsted was the first to use sterilized medical gloves when he was at Johns Hopkins University. With the publication of germ theory Halsted was using carbolic acid, introduced by Joseph Lister, to sterilize his hands and his nurse's hands. She was sensitive to the chemical, and it was damaging the skin on her hands; so he asked the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company if they could make a glove of rubber that could be dipped in carbolic acid.
The first disposable latex medical gloves were manufactured in 1964 by Ansell. They based the production on the technique for making condoms. These gloves have a range of clinical uses ranging from dealing with human excrement to dental applications.
Criminals have also been known to wear these gloves during the commission of their crimes. These gloves are often chosen because of their tight, thin fit that allows the hands to remain dexterous. Ironically, because of the thinness of these gloves, fingerprints may actually pass through the material as glove prints, thus transferring the wearer's prints onto whatever surface is touched or handled.
The participants of the Watergate burglaries infamously did so wearing rubber surgical gloves in an effort to hide their fingerprints.
Read more about this topic: Medical Glove
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–c. 120)
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)