How the rubber glove was invented | Moments of Vision 4 - Jessica Oreck
In a Moment of Vision...
It's the winter of 1890.
Dr. William Halsted is the chief surgeon
at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
The scrub nurse under Halsted,
a woman named Caroline Hampton,
begins to develop a severe reaction
to the strong disinfectants
used to scour her hands and arms
before surgery.
Halsted takes an interest in her plight.
In a moment of vision, he asks
Goodyear rubber company
to experiment with the production
of a pair of thin rubber gloves.
They fit Caroline, well, like gloves,
and her hands begin to recover.
In fact, the gloves are such a success
that the good doctor orders more
for his team and for himself.
From these early experiments,
a multibillion dollar rubber glove
industry is born.
And it turns out the doctor didn't
just want to protect the nurse's hands.
He also wanted to take them
in holy matrimony.
Halsted and Caroline were married
just a few months after he gave
her that first pair of gloves.
