In fact, the beginning of the concept of "wearing gloves when operating" is not scientific at all, which can be said to be romantic. Let's turn the camera from Europe to the United States and introduce a man who led the great leap forward in surgery-William Stewart halsted.
New standard of complete disinfection
In a word, Dr. House is really a legend. His father is a successful and wealthy dry goods merchant who owns a luxurious mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York. Haustedt is an athlete who is good at all kinds of ball games. He was the captain of the football team in college. However, Haustedt was not interested in books since he was a child, and his academic performance was mostly below average. He never borrowed books from the university library when he was studying, and even had a record of dropping out of school. By chance, at the end of the university, Hausdiet bought a copy of Gray's Anatomy, which made him interested in physiology and anatomy, so he chose medical college for further study.
When Hausdiet was studying, the disinfection practice of Liszt, the father of modern medicine, had spread to the United States, but it was not popular. In the hospital, Hausdiet only saw two surgeons willing to disinfect. However, careful Haustedt has felt that the probability of infection can be greatly reduced after disinfection and hand washing.
As a result, after the internship, House Ted, a well-off family, was not in a hurry to find a job to earn living expenses. He chose to travel to European countries and spent two years watching masters in various fields of surgery. After returning to new york, Hausdiet's knowledge and skills made him gradually emerge. New york's first appendectomy and person-to-person blood transfusion were completed by Haustedt.
From the story of his operation on his family, we can clearly see Haustedt's confidence and boldness of vision. When Haustedt's sister had postpartum hemorrhage, he first took out his own blood and injected it into her body to wake up the bleeding sister, and then operated on her to stop the bleeding. On another occasion, my mother had a stomachache, a high fever and jaundice, and several doctors were helpless. The family thought that the old lady was dying, so they quickly recalled Hausdiet. At first glance, Haustedt thought it was an acute cholecystitis attack and decided to have the operation on the Chinese food table at home. He operated on his mother at two o'clock in the morning to drain gallstones and abscesses, setting the first case of cholecystostomy in American medical field at that time.
In addition to decisive and bold self-confidence, Haustead is also a perfectionist. In terms of surgery, Hausdter strives for perfection and advocates thorough disinfection. In addition, Haustedt emphasized respect for human tissues, not seeking quick operation, but seeking good operation to minimize tissue damage and blood loss. Colleagues' evaluation of Haustead, translated into modern language, is "focusing on perfection, almost demanding." His pursuit of perfection in life is also talked about by everyone. When holding a dinner party, he asked the tablecloth to be flat without any wrinkles, and asked someone to check the coffee beans one by one to ensure the quality. Housedet's suits are all made in London, shirts and shoes are all made in Paris, and even shirts are shipped back to Paris for washing. Be sure to present an impeccable side.
Haustedt also applied the attitude of pursuing perfection to clinical trials. At that time, a doctor extracted cocaine from coca leaves and suggested that cocaine be used as a local anesthetic to anesthetize conjunctiva and cornea.
At that time, surgery was only an option of general anesthesia. Inspired by this paper, Haustedt thought that the idea of using "local anesthesia" for surgery was promising and decided to test cocaine himself. So Haustedt and the students helped each other inject cocaine to test its method and effect of inhibiting sensory nerves. Unfortunately, after repeated experiments, they gradually became addicted to cocaine, and even three colleagues died of drug overdose.
Housette, who strives for perfection in everything, has not performed as well as before since he took cocaine seriously. He did not write this discovery into a paper, nor did he apply the concept of local anesthesia to patients.
In order to overcome the temptation of cocaine, Haustedt had to be hospitalized for detoxification. I was hospitalized for 15 months in the first two years before finally getting rid of cocaine. But at that time, doctors used morphine for treatment, so after getting rid of cocaine, Haustedt continued to be addicted to morphine and could not get rid of the temptation of morphine for almost a lifetime.
Medical gloves in the name of love
Hausdiet's bright future was interrupted by his drug addiction. 1889, he left new york for Baltimore, a quiet place, and became a veteran of the upcoming Johns Hopkins Hospital. Here, Haustedt met his future wife and unexpectedly became the ancestor of surgical gloves.
The thing is, since House Ted came to Johns Hopkins Hospital, he probably admired the hand brush nurse who was also the head nurse in the operating room. In Haustead's eyes, this "more efficient than ordinary people" brush nurse is quite interested in many medical problems, so Haustead often finds time to teach privately, and they spend more and more time together. The routine job of a hand-brushing nurse is to go into the operating room to brush hands and assist doctors in surgery. At that time, the step of hand brushing required by Hausdter was very complicated, and the last step was to soak the washed hands in corrosive mercuric chloride solution. Because of repeated immersion in disinfectant, the hand of the brush nurse has severe dermatitis. Haustedt is eager to solve it for her, hoping to find a good method that is sterile and does not hurt her skin.
Knowing that the chemical solution with cleaning function is likely to cause skin damage, Hausdiet thought of the method of "wearing gloves" instead of trying to change the disinfectant.
Glove prototypes have existed since18th century. At first, gloves were made of sheep's cecum, only half the size of hands. Gloves were invented not to reduce infection, but to make obstetricians' hands have a smooth outer layer when they are put into labor, so as not to hurt tissues.
1890, Hausdiet commissioned a rubber company to make several pairs of gloves, which were similar to the long gloves worn by ladies at dinner, but the material was changed to rubber. The original intention of making gloves was to brush nurses' hands, but he never imagined that rubber gloves were so popular in the operating room that many surgeons and nurses rushed to use them.
Bredeger, a student of Hausdiet, found that the infection rate of patients had dropped to almost zero since the hernia operation with gloves on, and he was happy to report the good news to Hausdiet immediately. After being encouraged by everyone, Haustedt decided to put on gloves to operate. However, although everyone agrees that wearing gloves can reduce the infection rate and mortality rate, Haustedt believes that wearing gloves will affect the touch. In the first four or five years, he sometimes wore gloves, sometimes he didn't, and even took off his gloves and touched them directly in the middle of the operation. It was not until the adaptation period that Hausdter turned "glove operation" into a routine, and the use of rubber gloves gradually spread to all parts of the world.
Rubber gloves can not only reduce skin allergies, but also win the hearts of nurses who brush their hands. Later, the head nurse became Mrs. Haustead.
The great progress in medical history, whether it is anesthesia, infection or the development of aseptic concept, is often full of setbacks and even tragic stories. The invention of rubber gloves should be regarded as the most beautiful and romantic misunderstanding. The concepts of disinfection and sterility have been gradually accepted by medical circles all over the world through the efforts and contributions of Hausdiet and others, resulting in the clean and tidy operating room we see today.
Creating a completely sterile territory in an environment full of microorganisms, like a key, opens an unprecedented medical avenue.
This article is included in the business weekly Desperate Scalpel: Black Humor in the History of Surgery.