Rubber Gloves: “Born” – and Now Banished – At Johns Hopkins – 01/14/2008
William Stewart Halsted, The Johns Hopkins Hospital’s first surgeon in chief, is widely credited as the first to develop and introduce rubber surgical gloves in the United States. That was in 1894, five years after the institution opened.
Now, in an effort to make medical care safer for patients and health care workers, The Johns Hopkins Hospital has become the first major medical institution to become “latex safe” by ending all use of latex gloves and almost all medical latex products.