The story of medical plaster tape: Earle Dickson
Earle Dickson, an American employee of Johnson
& Johnson company is behind the invention of the medical plaster, or
Band-Aid. This daily consumer product was born because of Earle’s wife,
Josephine, in which her fingers were cut while preparing a meal. The loving husband added a piece of gaze in the
middle and an adhesive plaster on both sides. Each day Earle had to cut pieces of an adhesive
tape and gauze in order to make bandages; thus, he decided to prepare several
bandages previously. Attaching gauze squares along an adhesive strip
and covering it with a fabric called crinoline was Earle’s idea, so the wife
aided herself by cutting off a piece of this strip. Back then, before 1920, which was the year of
the beginning of this story, there was no small, suitable size of a bandage for
minor injuries and burn situations. Thus, the large bandage was not preferred,
in which it covers a large part of the affected area beside the minor injury or
cut. Band-Aid was a flexible and a sterilized plaster with a suitable size.
Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi, or the father of
surgery, was an Arab-Andalusian physician, pharmacist, ophthalmologist, and dentist. In his book Kitab
al-Tasrif, an encyclopedia of medicine and surgery, it is mentioned that he invented the modern plaster and adhesive
bandage, also he was the first surgeon to make use of cotton. In addition, al-Zahrawi discussed in the pages of
his book about the preparation of some drugs and described some techniques,
such as sublimation and decntation.
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