The use of gloves in medicine and surgery is widespread today, and the idea of performing surgical procedures and many medical examinations without the doctor or nurse wearing gloves is now unthinkable. This, however, was not always the case – and the story of how we got to where we are in terms of medical glove use is quite interesting.
Early Precursors to Modern Gloves
The first precursors to our modern medical gloves were very basic gloves made in 1758. The material used was from sheep’s caecum (the proximal end of the large intestine). These were used by a German physician named Johann Walbaum for delivering babies and conducting gynaecological examinations.
Adoption of Rubber Gloves
In the 1840s, pathologists started wearing rubber gloves for autopsy (post-mortem) examinations. These were very thick and cumbersome to work with.
In 1844, Charles Goodyear discovered the vulcanisation process for rubber, which enabled a thinner and more pliable rubber glove to be manufactured.
Understanding Hygiene and Surgery
Gloves were not worn by doctors for surgery until the late 1800s, as it was not until then that microorganisms and their risks were understood. Until then, surgeons operated with bare hands and there was no appreciation for basic cleanliness, let alone hygiene. Surgeons wore filthy clothing, covered with blood and other horrors, as “badges of honour”. Surgery understandably carried a high infection rate, and many people died of sepsis in the post-operative period. Hospitals were widely regarded as “houses of death”.
In 1843 it was first suggested that puerperal fever (an often fatal infection associated with childbirth) might be transmitted between people and that the personal cleanliness of doctors played an important role. Handwashing with antiseptic disinfectant was introduced in 1847, and death rates dropped dramatically. Over the next few decades, the importance of cleanliness and hygiene in terms of instruments, hands, and the clothing worn in operating rooms became better understood and was implemented.
Germ Theory and the Introduction of Surgical Gloves
In 1883, Louis Pasteur proposed his germ theory, which stated that certain illnesses and diseases are caused by microorganisms.
In 1889, the surgical glove as we recognise it today was first introduced in the USA by Caroline Hampton and William Halsted. Hampton was the chief nurse in Halsted’s operating room at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. She developed severe contact dermatitis from the harsh disinfectants used in the operating theatre and Halsted organised for the Goodyear Rubber Company to custom-make two pairs of thin rubber gloves for her to wear. They were crafted based on a plaster cast of her hands. So effective were they, that more were ordered and others too adopted their use.
Routine Use of Gloves in Surgery
The use of rubber gloves became routine for assistants (who were exposed to carbolic acid used to wash instruments), but surgeons rarely wore them until it was proven a few years later that germs indeed cause disease. Once this was understood and accepted, glove use by surgeons became compulsory.
Joseph Lister discovered in 1894 that rubber gloves could be sterilised with carbolic acid. This led to a dramatic reduction in deaths due to post-surgical infection.
The Shift to Disposable Gloves
From the early 1900s to the 1960s, a single pair of rubber gloves was used for multiple patients – which was hardly ideal! This changed in 1964 when the Ansell Rubber Company manufactured the world’s first disposable medical glove. Using gamma irradiation as an affordable sterilisation technique, this led the way forward and other rubber manufacturers soon adopted this method of sterilisation for disposable gloves – a practice that remains prevalent today.
Evolution of Medical Gloves
Medical gloves and their use have evolved enormously since the 1960s – from the standards of use (particularly in response to the rise in bloodborne diseases like Hepatitis and HIV) to glove materials. From latex to the availability of nitrile disposable gloves from the 1990s, and improvements in these, medical gloves are intrinsic to everything from GP clinics to operating theatres, pathology labs to ward nursing, dentists to pharmacology, and everything in between.
