When Clean Was a New Concept in the Operating Room
By KATIE HILER, NYT
Today, keeping things clean as a way to ward off germs and infections just makes sense. But before antibiotic-resistant superbugs became a hospital’s biggest concern, there were the bad old days when doctors would move from surgery to surgery without washing. And surprisingly it was only during the 20th century that sterilization evolved from a simple and very new concept into one of the most important life-saving practices in medicine.
In 1910, the United States was dealing with a public health crisis — the relatively unknown virus Poliomyelitis, more commonly known as polio, was infecting large swaths of the American population. The disease spread through cities and even climbed up the socioeconomic ladder into the ranks of the elite, infecting Franklin Delano Roosevelt, perhaps the malady’s most famous victim, more than a decade before his rise to the presidency. By 1932 the country was still struggling to contain infection rates —the vaccine that ended the epidemic would not be developed until the 1950s — but much had been learned about the way the virus behaved. Once it became known that polio could be transmitted through the nose and mouth many hospitals ordered their staff to wear one additional item: a simple plastic shield over the face, which kept the virus from spreading.
By the 1960s, hospitals were using a number of plastic items in the form of disposable supplies. The trend towards disposable products was credited in part to an even larger trend — growth in urban areas and the establishment of Medicare resulted in more people using hospitals. This influx of patients made disposable materials more affordable and necessary. But the idea of throwing away hospital supplies after one use was still strange and new, and its advantage had yet to be fully realized. In a New York Times article from 1961 describing the new procedure, Richard Rutter wrote:
“A pre-sterilized, disposable needle and other disposable-type equipment such as syringes, gloves, tubing, mattress covers, masks and waste container liners — is used only once and then discarded. Chances of cross-infection are said to be reduced drastically.”
(More here.)
Today, keeping things clean as a way to ward off germs and infections just makes sense. But before antibiotic-resistant superbugs became a hospital’s biggest concern, there were the bad old days when doctors would move from surgery to surgery without washing. And surprisingly it was only during the 20th century that sterilization evolved from a simple and very new concept into one of the most important life-saving practices in medicine.
In 1910, the United States was dealing with a public health crisis — the relatively unknown virus Poliomyelitis, more commonly known as polio, was infecting large swaths of the American population. The disease spread through cities and even climbed up the socioeconomic ladder into the ranks of the elite, infecting Franklin Delano Roosevelt, perhaps the malady’s most famous victim, more than a decade before his rise to the presidency. By 1932 the country was still struggling to contain infection rates —the vaccine that ended the epidemic would not be developed until the 1950s — but much had been learned about the way the virus behaved. Once it became known that polio could be transmitted through the nose and mouth many hospitals ordered their staff to wear one additional item: a simple plastic shield over the face, which kept the virus from spreading.
By the 1960s, hospitals were using a number of plastic items in the form of disposable supplies. The trend towards disposable products was credited in part to an even larger trend — growth in urban areas and the establishment of Medicare resulted in more people using hospitals. This influx of patients made disposable materials more affordable and necessary. But the idea of throwing away hospital supplies after one use was still strange and new, and its advantage had yet to be fully realized. In a New York Times article from 1961 describing the new procedure, Richard Rutter wrote:
“A pre-sterilized, disposable needle and other disposable-type equipment such as syringes, gloves, tubing, mattress covers, masks and waste container liners — is used only once and then discarded. Chances of cross-infection are said to be reduced drastically.”
(More here.)
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