The Invention of Rubber Gloves : A Love Story

Has anyone ever loved you to the point where they created something everyone else could use ? Show of hands, none? Okay me too but one woman was lucky.

Caroline Hampton was a nurse who worked long hours at the hospital dipping her hands into strong antiseptic. This wasn’t good on her hands as it caused her dermatitis and red painful hands.

She was tired of the pain so she went to see Dr. William Halstead, a surgeon that she assisted in the theatre to complain. He was fond of her so he took her complaints seriously, especially since she threatened to resign if she had to keep dipping her bare hands into antiseptics.

In 1890 inspired by his love and fondness for his theatre assistant, William Halsted invented latex rubber gloves for physicians and nurses.

It’s absolutely beautiful that the use of rubber gloves in medicine was borne out of love between a scrub nurse and a surgeon, he loved her to the point of invention and she eventually became his wife. He quite simply loved her to the point of invention, an invention surgeons and nurses all over the world benefit from. I’m not crying, you are.