How the rubber glove was invented | Moments of Vision 4 - Jessica Oreck

In a Moment of Vision...

It's the winter of 1890.

Dr. William Halsted is the chief surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

The scrub nurse under Halsted, a woman named Caroline Hampton,

begins to develop a severe reaction to the strong disinfectants

used to scour her hands and arms before surgery.

Halsted takes an interest in her plight.

In a moment of vision, he asks Goodyear rubber company

to experiment with the production of a pair of thin rubber gloves.

They fit Caroline, well, like gloves, and her hands begin to recover.

In fact, the gloves are such a success

that the good doctor orders more for his team and for himself.

From these early experiments,

a multibillion dollar rubber glove industry is born.

And it turns out the doctor didn't just want to protect the nurse's hands.

He also wanted to take them in holy matrimony.

Halsted and Caroline were married

just a few months after he gave her that first pair of gloves.