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William Stewart Halsted
(1852 – 1922)
American surgeon and inventor of the surgical gloves
The first Professor of Surgery at John Hopkins, Halstead pioneered many innovations in the field of surgery: the surgical residency programmes, the careful and meticulous technique of operating, the green surgical scrubs and the use of gloves in surgery. Halstead’s scrub nurse was the able Caroline Hampton, for whom he had a soft spot. When he noticed that her hands were raw and chaffed from the sterilizing liquid mercuric chloride, he acted. He had the Goodyear Tyre and Rubber Company produce rubber protective gloves for her. Thereafter both Halstead and his surgical assistant started wearing gloves as well, and this became the norm. Halstead went on to marry Ms. Hampton, and the surgical gloves have become an effective tool in the surgical theatre.
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© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Neilson, A., Carachi, R. (2013). A3 Preparation. In: Carachi, R., Agarwala, S., Bradnock, T.J., Lim Tan, H., Cascio, S. (eds) Basic Techniques in Pediatric Surgery. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20641-2_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20641-2_3
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