Who invented the patch. The history of the invention of the bactericidal patch

Who and when invented the band-aid?

Adhesive plaster, sticky plaster, leukoplast, thin matter with an adhesive mass applied to it, consisting of rosin, wax, zinc oxide, lanolin, rubber and refined gasoline. Easily adheres to the skin. It is used to cover small skin lesions, fix surgical dressings and for traction.

Birth.

First story.
In 1882, the German Paul Karl Beuersdorf applied natural rubber, pine resin and zinc oxide to a piece of linen cloth, and adhesive plaster was invented. On a May day in 1890, at home in the German city of Hamburg, 27-year-old pharmacist Oskar Troplowitz was looking through the latest issue of the specialized newspaper Pharmazeutische Zeitung. It offered to urgently and inexpensively (for 70 thousand DM) buy a small chemical-pharmaceutical factory along with a warehouse.

Troplovitz dreamed of his own business all his life. Oscar learned how, eight years ago, a pharmacist made a truly revolutionary invention - he created the world's first germicidal patch that can heal wounds without causing more infection or skin irritation. The patch was immediately patented and became the first building block in the foundation of the new Beiersdorf company.

In 1892, he purchased new premises, in which he opened a trading floor.
He offered cooperation to Beiersdorf's former partner, the famous German dermatologist Paul Gerson Unna, who, together with Paul Beiersdorf, participated in the development of patches.

In tandem, Troplowitz and Unna received one of the most important patents for Leukoplast, a product that is well known in modern pharmaceuticals as a germicidal adhesive plaster. They managed to neutralize the irritating effect of a conventional patch by adding zinc oxide to its composition, which also gave the patch a modern white color.

In 1922, Troplowitz created the new Hansaplast brand. Leukoplast and Hansaplast were sold at fundamentally low prices. This commitment to this tactic has helped Beiersdorf to become a global company relatively quickly.


Second story.
In 1899, the Johnson brothers: Robert, James offered physicians a non-irritating surgical tape with zinc oxide adhesive, designed to hold a gauze bandage on the body.
It can be said that mankind was lucky that Josephine Dixon - the wife of Earl Dixon's cotton wool supplier for the Johnsons' firm - was young and inexperienced in housekeeping. At every step, misfortunes lay in wait for her: either she would cut her finger with a kitchen knife, or she would burn herself, grabbing a hot frying pan.
Loving Earl patiently bandaged her hands and sealed her wounds with surgical tape, which he brought from work. Not wanting to leave Josephine at the mercy of his neighbors, Earl thought about it and rethought the dressing procedure itself. The bandage should stay in place, be easy and comfortable to apply, and at the same time be sterile.

He placed three inches of surgical tape on the kitchen table, sticky side up, cut off a piece of gauze, and stuck it in the middle. To prevent the bandage from getting dirty and the glue from drying out, he covered the tape with a thin cloth. The point of all this was that when Mrs. Dixon hurt herself again, all she had to do was remove the protective cloth and apply a ready-made bandage to the injured area.

Dixon shared his fiction with a colleague, who advised him to tell the manager about it. President James Johnson saw a great future in this invention, and the manager of the cotton mill, W. Johnson Kenyon, came up with a name for the new product: band (tape) + aid (help) - and it turned out to be “band-aid”, what we call plaster today. In 1924, the Johnson firm installed a machine to cut band-aids into pieces 3 inches long and 3/4 inches wide.

Earl Dickson was born in 1892 in Grandview, Tennessee (Grandview, Tennessee). Unfortunately, there is no information about his early life, but it is known that in 1917 he married Josephine Frances Knight, who later became the reason that Dixon thought about inventing a simple and effective remedy for wounds. At that time, Dixon was already working for Johnson & Johnson, buying cotton for the firm in New Jersey (New Brunswick, New Jersey).

Josephine, who was a housewife, was an unusually traumatic person - she injured her fingers almost daily. She herself applied bandages to herself, which constantly got wet while working in the kitchen and fell off her fingers.

So, wanting to alleviate the plight of his wife, Earl once came up with a completely new type of dressing - he cut many strips of gauze and pasted them on adhesive medical tape. Then he ran a strip of fabric along the length to keep the tape from sticking, and rolled everything up so that Josephine could only cut off the pieces she needed.

This is how the world's first adhesive plaster was made.

Meanwhile, Earl, who already realized that he had come up with something revolutionary, mustered up the courage and went to the bosses of Johnson & Johnson. At first, Dixon's invention did not impress the management, but when he demonstrated it on himself, everyone was simply amazed at the simplicity and effectiveness of the new tool.

Soon a new product appeared on the drug market, which was called Band-Aids®. At first, it did not sell very well, these were ribbons 7 cm wide and 45 cm long, they were made at that time by hand.

Slightly disappointed, the company's management decided to change the size, and in 1924 the machine production of adhesive tape in smaller sizes was established. It was then that a new remedy for treating wounds began to gain popularity.

In 1939, the band-aid began to be sterilized.

Best of the day

Earl Dixon has worked at Johnson & Johnson all his life. In the wake of the success of his invention, he received several promotions, and later even became vice president of the company. He retired in 1957 and remained on the Board of Directors until his death. By the end of his life, Johnson & Johnson was selling $30,000,000 worth of Band-Aids® annually.

First story.

In 1882, the German Paul Karl Beuersdorf applied natural rubber, pine resin and zinc oxide to a piece of linen cloth, and adhesive plaster was invented.

On a May day in 1890, at home in the German city of Hamburg, 27-year-old pharmacist Oskar Troplowitz was looking through the latest issue of the specialized newspaper Pharmazeutische Zeitung. One of the advertisements caught my attention young man. It offered to urgently and inexpensively (for 70 thousand DM) buy a small chemical-pharmaceutical factory along with a warehouse.

Troplowitz, who came from a Jewish family that took root in Upper Silesia in the 17th century, dreamed of owning his own business all his life. Oscar was so interested in the offer to sell that he decided to write a letter to the advertiser in which he asked for clarification on some details of interest to him. The answer was not long in coming. A letter from Paul Karl Beiersdorf, a well-known specialist in the pharmaceutical world and, in fact, the owner of the factory, he received in just a couple of days.

From the letter, Oscar learned how, eight years ago, a pharmacist made a truly revolutionary invention - he created the world's first bactericidal patch that can heal wounds without causing more infection or skin irritation. The patch was immediately patented and became the first building block in the foundation of the new Beiersdorf company.

However, inventing the band-aid turned out to be easier than getting people to buy it. The unenterprising Byersdorf simply had no idea how to sell the goods. During a personal meeting between Beiersdorf and Troplowitz, the latter asked him a question: how much does product advertising cost? Beiersdorf replied that he was not engaged in any advertising and did not understand this issue at all.

Troplowitz understood why all the unsold goods were lying dead in the warehouse, and the Beiersdorf company, in the hands of an inept entrepreneur, was gradually approaching financial collapse.

Troplowitz, who at that time was almost half Beiersdorf's age, turned out to be the exact opposite of his older colleague. Young, assertive, accustomed to taking the maximum out of life, Oscar Troplovitz was simply shocked by the approach to doing business at Beiersdorf's company. When on October 1, 1890, both pharmacists finished with all the legal procedures for the transaction and shook hands, hundreds of ideas for organizing a new business swarm in the head of the new owner of Beiersdorf. He already knew that he would launch such an advertising campaign that buyers would have no choice but to buy up his products in batches.

Paul Baiersdorf himself devoted the rest of his life to pharmaceutical experiments in his private estate in Altona. Then he got involved in some dubious deal and lost almost all the money, after which in June 1896 he committed suicide by poisoning himself.

Troplowitz, on the other hand, was getting better and better. In 1892, he purchased new premises, in which he opened a trading floor. By the way, this building is still the head office of Beiersdorf.

Troplowitz worked on technology, increased output, and tried his best to minimize production costs. He offered cooperation to Beiersdorf's former partner, the famous German dermatologist Paul Gerson Unna, who, together with Paul Beiersdorf, participated in the development of patches.

In tandem, Troplowitz and Unna received one of the most important patents for Leukoplast, a product that is well known in modern pharmaceuticals as a germicidal adhesive plaster. They managed to neutralize the irritating effect of a conventional patch by adding zinc oxide to its composition, which also gave the patch a modern white color.

The last moment remained: to show the invention to the buyer with the help of an advertising campaign and wait for his reaction. She did not take long to wait - very soon Beiersdorf patches began to be in great demand in Germany, and a few years later all over the world.

Another product that Troplowitz co-invented with Unna was Paraplast, a new type of medical plaster made entirely of cotton.

In addition to medical, the Beiersdorf laboratory also received a number of technical patches that were absolutely unsuitable for human skin, but turned out to be simply indispensable, for example, to seal a torn bicycle tire. Thus, based on the new products received, a new division of the company was created, specializing in the production of insulating tapes.

In 1922, Troplowitz created the new Hansaplast brand. Leukoplast and Hansaplast were sold at fundamentally low prices. This commitment to this tactic has helped Beiersdorf to become a global company relatively quickly.

Second story.

In 1899, the Johnson brothers: Robert, James offered physicians a non-irritating surgical tape with zinc oxide adhesive, designed to hold a gauze bandage on the body.

It can be said that humanity was lucky that Josephine Dixon - the wife of Earl Dixon's cotton supplier for the Johnsons' firm - was young and inexperienced in housekeeping. At every step, misfortunes lay in wait for her: either she would cut her finger with a kitchen knife, or she would burn herself, grabbing a hot frying pan.

A more enlightened husband might have taken Josephine to the followers of Freud and found out the reason for her masochistic desire for self-destruction, but the loving Earl patiently bandaged her hands and sealed her wounds with surgical tape, which he brought from work. He knew how to provide first aid - his father and grandfather were doctors, but the fuss with the bandage required a lot of trouble, and most importantly, the presence of Earl himself was an almost impossible condition, given that half of Dixon's working time was traveling. Not wanting to leave Josephine at the mercy of neighbors, Earl I thought about it and reviewed the very procedure of dressing. The bandage should stay in place, be easy and comfortable to apply, and at the same time be sterile.

He laid a three-inch-wide surgical tape on the kitchen table, sticky side up, cut off a piece of gauze and glued it in the middle. To keep the bandage from getting dirty and the glue from drying out, he covered the tape with a thin cloth. The point of all this was that when Mrs. Dixon hurt herself again, all she had to do was remove the protective cloth and apply a ready-made bandage to the injured area.

Dixon shared his fiction with a colleague, who advised him to tell the manager about it. President James Johnson saw a great future in this invention, and the manager of the cotton mill, W. Johnson Kenyon, came up with a name for the new product: band (ribbon) + aid (help) - and it turned out to be “band-aid”, what we call plaster today. In 1924, the Johnson firm installed a machine to cut band-aids into pieces 3 inches long and 3/4 inches wide.

So, thanks to these two stories, now we have and actively use in Everyday life one of the valuable inventions of the century is the plaster.

*Patch(from the Greek émplastron - ointment, patch, from emplásso - I smear, coat), dosage form for external use. Melts or softens at body temperature. The composition includes wax, paraffin, rosin, rubber, etc.; sometimes drugs are added. By appointment, they are isolated: to protect the skin from external irritations, to hold bandages and have a specific therapeutic effect (for example, corn), as well as lead (for the treatment of boils, carbuncles), bactericidal (used for purulent wounds), pepper (for radiculitis, neuralgia, etc.). These also include skin adhesives and varnishes that form an elastic film after evaporation (collodion, cleol, BF-6 glue, etc.).

Adhesive plaster, sticky plaster, leukoplast, thin matter with an adhesive mass applied to it, consisting of rosin, wax, zinc oxide, lanolin, rubber and refined gasoline. Easily adheres to the skin. It is used to cover small skin lesions, fix surgical dressings and for traction.


Plaster (from the Greek émplastron - ointment, plaster, from emplásso - I cover, smear), dosage form for external use. Melts or softens at body temperature. The composition includes wax, paraffin, rosin, rubber, etc.; sometimes drugs are added. By appointment, they are isolated: to protect the skin from external irritations, to hold bandages and have a specific therapeutic effect (for example, corn), as well as lead (for the treatment of boils, carbuncles), bactericidal (used for purulent wounds), pepper (for radiculitis, neuralgia, etc.). These also include skin adhesives and varnishes that form an elastic film after evaporation (collodion, cleol, BF-6 glue, etc.).

Adhesive plaster, sticky plaster, leukoplast, thin matter with an adhesive mass applied to it, consisting of rosin, wax, zinc oxide, lanolin, rubber and refined gasoline. Easily adheres to the skin. It is used to cover small skin lesions, fix surgical dressings and for traction.

There are 2 stories about the invention of the patch.

First story.

In 1882, the German Paul Karl Beuersdorf applied natural rubber, pine resin and zinc oxide to a piece of linen cloth, and adhesive plaster was invented. On a May afternoon in 1890, at home in the German city of Hamburg, a 27-year-old pharmacist looked through the latest issue of the specialized newspaper Pharmazeutische Zeitung. One of the advertisements caught the attention of a young man. It offered to urgently and inexpensively (for 70 thousand DM) buy a small chemical-pharmaceutical factory along with a warehouse.

Troplowitz, who came from a Jewish family that took root in Upper Silesia in the 17th century, dreamed of owning his own business all his life. Oscar was so interested in the offer to sell that he decided to write a letter to the advertiser in which he asked for clarification on some details of interest to him. The answer was not long in coming. A letter from Paul Karl Beiersdorf, a well-known specialist in the pharmaceutical world and, in fact, the owner of the factory, he received in just a couple of days.

From the letter, Oscar learned how, eight years ago, a pharmacist made a truly revolutionary invention - he created the world's first bactericidal patch that can heal wounds without causing more infection or skin irritation. The patch was immediately patented and became the first building block in the foundation of the new Beiersdorf company.

However, inventing the band-aid turned out to be easier than getting people to buy it. The unenterprising Byersdorf simply had no idea how to sell the goods. During a personal meeting between Beiersdorf and Troplowitz, the latter asked him a question: how much does product advertising cost? Beiersdorf replied that he was not engaged in any advertising and did not understand this issue at all.

Troplowitz understood why all the unsold goods were lying dead in the warehouse, and the Beiersdorf company, in the hands of an inept entrepreneur, was gradually approaching financial collapse.

Troplovitz, who at that time was almost half Beiersdorf's age, turned out to be the exact opposite of his older colleague. Young, assertive, accustomed to taking the maximum out of life, Oscar Troplowitz was simply shocked by the approach to doing business at Beiersdorf's company. When on October 1, 1890, both pharmacists finished with all legal procedures for the transaction and shook hands, hundreds of ideas for organizing a new business swarm in the head of the new owner of Beiersdorf. He already knew that he would launch such an advertising campaign that buyers would have no choice but to buy up his products in batches.

Paul Baiersdorf himself devoted the rest of his life to pharmaceutical experiments in his private estate in Altona. Then he got involved in some dubious deal and lost almost all the money, after which in June 1896 he committed suicide by poisoning himself.

Troplowitz, on the other hand, was getting better and better. In 1892, he purchased new premises, in which he opened a trading floor. By the way, this building is still the head office of Beiersdorf.

Troplowitz worked on technology, increased output, and tried his best to minimize production costs. He offered cooperation to Beiersdorf's former partner, the famous German dermatologist Paul Gerson Unna, who, together with Paul Beiersdorf, participated in the development of patches.

In tandem, Troplowitz and Unna received one of the most important patents for Leukoplast, a product that is well known in modern pharmaceuticals as a germicidal adhesive plaster. They managed to neutralize the irritating effect of a conventional patch by adding zinc oxide to its composition, which also gave the patch a modern white color.

The last moment remained: to show the invention to the buyer with the help of an advertising campaign and wait for his reaction. She did not take long to wait - very soon Beiersdorf patches began to be in great demand in Germany, and a few years later all over the world.

Another product that Troplowitz co-invented with Unna was Paraplast, a new type of medical plaster made entirely of cotton.

In addition to medical, the Beiersdorf laboratory also received a number of technical patches that were absolutely unsuitable for human skin, but turned out to be simply indispensable, for example, to seal a torn bicycle tire. Thus, based on the new products received, a new division of the company was created, specializing in the production of insulating tapes.

In 1922, Troplowitz created the new Hansaplast brand. Leukoplast and Hansaplast were sold at fundamentally low prices. This commitment to this tactic has helped Beiersdorf to become a global company relatively quickly.



Second story.

In 1899, the Johnson brothers: Robert, James offered physicians a non-irritating surgical tape with zinc oxide adhesive, designed to hold a gauze bandage on the body.
It can be said that mankind was lucky that Josephine Dixon - the wife of Earl Dixon's cotton wool supplier for the Johnsons' firm - was young and inexperienced in housekeeping. At every step, misfortunes lay in wait for her: either she would cut her finger with a kitchen knife, or she would burn herself, grabbing a hot frying pan.

A more enlightened husband might have taken Josephine to the followers of Freud and found out the reason for her masochistic desire for self-destruction, but the loving Earl patiently bandaged her hands and sealed her wounds with surgical tape, which he brought from work. He knew how to provide first aid - his father and grandfather were doctors, but fussing with a bandage required a lot of trouble, and most importantly, the presence of Earl himself - an almost impossible condition, given that half of Dixon's working time was traveling. Not wanting to leave Josephine at the mercy of his neighbors, Earl thought about it and rethought the dressing procedure itself. The bandage should stay in place, be easy and comfortable to apply, and at the same time be sterile.

He placed three inches of surgical tape on the kitchen table, sticky side up, cut off a piece of gauze, and stuck it in the middle. To prevent the bandage from getting dirty and the glue from drying out, he covered the tape with a thin cloth. The point of all this was that when Mrs. Dixon hurt herself again, all she had to do was remove the protective cloth and apply a ready-made bandage to the injured area.

Dixon shared his fiction with a colleague, who advised him to tell the manager about it. President James Johnson saw a great future in this invention, and the manager of the cotton mill, W. Johnson Kenyon, came up with a name for the new product: band (ribbon) + aid (help) - and it turned out to be “band-aid”, what we call plaster today. In 1924, the Johnson firm installed a machine to cut band-aids into pieces 3 inches long and 3/4 inches wide.

So, thanks to these two stories, now we have and actively use in everyday life one of the valuable inventions of the century - the band-aid.