Rubber gloves and romance? It’s not what you think!

When we think of romance, we usually conjure up images of flowers, candlelight dinners and walks on the beach, but for William Halsted, a founding professor of the Johns Hopkins Hospital in America, it was a pair of rubber gloves that sealed the deal.

But before I reveal why, let’s set the stage.

Our star, Caroline Hampton was a member of a prominent American southern family and the niece of Confederate General Wade Hampton III.

She was a feisty young woman and, rebelling against her family wishes, decided to follow her own path, out of the deep south and enrolled in a New York nursing school.   After graduating in 1888 she moved to Baltimore, and it was here that the feisty young rebel’s co-star, Prof. Halstead enters the stage.

Initially, Caroline was appointed as Chief Nurse to William, but it wasn’t long before they caught each other’s attention and their love of medicine soon became a love for each other.

Happy to keep their professional relationship apart from their new, romantic one, they continued to work together.  One of the solutions our debonair professor used as a disinfectant during his surgical procedures, was a mixture of  carbolic acid and mercuric chloride and, as his diligent scrub nurse, Caroline’s hands were always covered in these chemicals.  Those hands protested loudly, using a continual case of severe dermatitis as their voice.

Being a bit of a softy, William couldn’t handle his beautiful Caroline enduring such discomfort so he reached out (his own dermatitis-free hands) to the Goodyear Rubber Company and asked them to create a rubber glove that Caroline could wear to protect her hands.

Completely unaware of William’s kind-hearted efforts, Caroline put the pain of her hands aside, said “yes” and the two were married in June of 1890.

Shortly afterwards, he presented her with two pairs of rubber gloves made to fit plaster casts of her hands he’d taken earlier. 

Caroline’s hands got a well-earned reprieve from the chemicals, William secured a place firmly in the good books and it wasn’t long before his clever idea was being used by theatre staff and surgeons far and wide. In time, their use became commonplace and chemical induced dermatitis was sent packing.

By the early 1900s, sterile rubber gloves were being used all over the world.

Fast forward about 60 years and the first disposable latex medical gloves were manufactured by the Ansell Rubber Company, rolling off the production line in 1964.

As an interesting side note, did you know that the world uses an estimated 100 billion rubber gloves each year in the medical business alone? To keep up with demand,  large factories produce up to 45,000 rubber gloves per hour! Yes!  Per hour!

These rubber gloves are manufactured in kind of creepy, yet fascinating factories, like this one.

So, the next time you don a pair of rubber gloves, give a silent nod to William Halstead, a clever man who truly knew the meaning of romance.

While I had no input into the creation of rubber gloves, I am passionate about infection control and compliance with industry standards.  If you’re not sure about whether you cut the mustard in terms of compliance or you find the whole thing one big yawn, let’s connect so we can support each other to keep doing what we do best.

Image credit: Dental Stock Photos