Band-aids

As I was searching for a topic to talk about, I ended up finding information on the invention of the band-aid in 1920. Earle Dickson was the American inventor of the band-aid and worked for Johnson & Johnson in New Jersey at the time as a cotton buyer. As the story goes, his wife would cut herself when doing housework. Earle noticed that when he used gauze and taped it to the cut, it wouldn’t stay on throughout the day. He ended up placing the gauze in the center of a piece of tape and covered it with crinoline (“a stiff fabric with a weft of horse-hair and a warp of cotton or linen thread) to keep it safe and sterile”. This would end up staying in place for a long period of time. Earle’s boss got wind of his invention and “decided to manufacture band-aids to the public and make Earle Dickson vice-president of Johnson and Johnson.” The company started making the band-aids by hand. Each band-aid took about 30 seconds. They were made in sections 2 1/2 inches wide and 18 inches long so that you would just cut off the size you needed because they were not made pre-cut until 1924. This is when they started machine making them.

I thought this was an interesting story of the band-aid which I hadn’t heard about until now. Its amazing that this product is still around today and is such sought after product. It really makes you think about how the small things we have around were first invented.

DH

http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/dickson.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earle_Dickson

http://images.google.com/