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Around 1890 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, the operating-theatre nurse Caroline Hampton developed a painful skin reaction to the mercuric chloride antiseptic used on her hands. The surgeon William Halsted asked the Goodyear Rubber Company to make thin rubber gloves for her, and his assistants soon wore them too.

Johns Hopkins history — Caroline Hampton & William Halsted

HealthHistory

The story behind the card

The gloves began as protection for one person's skin, not as a way to stop infection. Hampton was the chief nurse in Halsted's operating theatre, and the two married in 1890. Other members of the team took up gloves over the following years, and in the late 1890s Halsted's resident surgeon Joseph Colt Bloodgood wore them routinely and reported fewer wound infections, which helped make gloved surgery standard. Halsted is often called a founder of modern American surgery: he introduced the radical mastectomy for breast cancer and created the first formal training programme for surgical residents in the United States, at Johns Hopkins.

Türkçe oku
1890 dolaylarında Baltimore'daki Johns Hopkins Hastanesi'nde, ameliyathane hemşiresi Caroline Hampton'ın elleri cıva klorürlü antiseptik yüzünden ağır biçimde tahriş oldu. Cerrah William Halsted, Goodyear lastik şirketinden onun için ince eldivenler yapmasını istedi; kısa süre sonra asistanları da bu eldivenleri taktı.

Eldivenler enfeksiyonu önlemek için değil, tek bir kişinin cildini korumak için yapılmıştı. Hampton, Halsted'in ameliyathanesinin başhemşiresiydi; ikisi 1890'da evlendi. Sonraki yıllarda ekipteki başka kişiler de eldiven takmaya başladı. 1890'ların sonunda Halsted'in asistan cerrahı Joseph Colt Bloodgood ameliyatlarda eldiveni düzenli olarak kullandı ve yara enfeksiyonlarının azaldığını bildirdi; bu da eldivenle ameliyatı standart hâle getirdi. Halsted, modern Amerikan cerrahisinin kurucularından biri sayılır: Meme kanseri için radikal mastektomiyi uygulamaya soktu ve Johns Hopkins'te ABD'nin ilk düzenli cerrahi uzmanlık eğitimi programını kurdu.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: William Stewart Halsted
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