Latex Gloves

Historically, latex gloves were initially used to protect the hands of professionals from antiseptical chemical agents used between 1870 and 1880. Surgical latex gloves became gained notoriety on the twentieth century, after their adoption by the John Hopkins medical school surgeons, with the purpose of protecting the patients from the bacteria present on bare hands. However, the great popularization occurred with the recommendation of the “Universal Precautions” (today called “standards”), in 1988, due to the AIDS emergence.

Latex gloves remain as a gold standard regarding a biological barrier and have been widely used in health related services. Alternative latex-free gloves are indicated for those who are allergic to its proteins.

Latex procedure gloves are nowadays personal protection equipment the most used by health related professionals. This is a great achievement in terms of protection to patients and health professionals. On the other hand, their popularization was such that lately, they have been used inappropriately, that could be due to the ease of access, comfortableness and lack of information.

All products have what is called “intended use”. That means the product was produced and tested for a determinate purpose. Let’s take a procedure glove as an example and compare it with a surgical glove. Although both are used in health related services and there is the possibility of procedure gloves being sold sterile, they should not be used in surgeries. Both types of gloves go through the quality control, but with different requirements, which are much more strict for surgical gloves. So why not make the same demands in order to reduce risk? it’s a cost/benefit matter, that’s the reason why procedure gloves cost less than surgical ones.

Many professionals are not aware of this difference and use their gloves incorrectly.

It all began with a love story

Until the beginning of the twentieth century, the use of gloves during surgeries was not put into practice, in spite of antiseptical solutions were already being used to clean the hands of surgeons and assistants. The invention of surgical gloves begins with a platonic love story between a doctor and his nurse: Dr. William Stewart Halstedt (1852-1922), great American surgeon, inventor of tens of surgical instruments and hospital gadgets. When he was chief of a hospital in Baltimore (USA), still a confirmed bachelor, falls in love secretly, platonically, with the nurse Caroline Hampton (Carol), who used to help him during the surgeries. At that time, since there weren’t any gloves, pre surgery procedures demanded the professionals to wash their hands with strong antiseptical solutions. Because of that, Carol developed dermatitis resultant from the contact with such substances. With wounded hands, she couldn’t help Halstedt. It was a desperate time for the doctor. He only accepted to operate with her help, such was his passion for her presence, safety and reliability that Carol used to confer him. Apprehensive, in search for a solution for this matter, Halstedt asked a businessman named Goodyear (later on of the largest tire manufacturers of the world) and asked him to make a rubber glove for his nurse. So it was done.

In order not to constrain his beloved, due to the black color of the rubber gloves (technology available at the time), Halstedt ordered extra pairs for all the other assistants. Starting from the continuous use of the gloves, it was noticed that the post surgery infections had practically disappeared. He determined then that the gloves were used during all surgeries, the procedure was then disseminated throughout the world until the employment of the ultra thin gloves currently used.

Halstedt and Carol worked together for a long time, joined more and more by the strong ties of love, they got married and lived on a penthouse at the hospital until his death in 1992. The surgical gloves were called for a long time as “the gloves of love” in respect to their history and the purity they provided while taking care of the patient’s wounds.

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www.supermax-brasil.com/artigos9.htm

http://www.sbhm.org.br/index.asp?p=congressos_resumo&codigo=11