“The hot red blood flowing like sauce
That Nick on the finger tip so deep!
Squeeze it more and it will not stop!
Just cover it with a band aid you dweep!”
My mother never encouraged us to buy this and keep in the house since she used to say that if it is there in the house, we would get hurt!
Yes the band aids!
More than getting a cut or a nick and the thrill of seeing blood ooze (after the initial horror and fear and a good cry of course!); the best part was putting those cool brown band aids! The cooler kids would get the spot band aids which were a tad costlier while the coolest of them would show off their washproof ones! Those were so transparent and thin that could put many models to shame!
And to think that the invention was due to a good husband who listened to his wife! Read on!
These band aids were more better if they were seen! So hands and face were the best places to stick them!
What is the point of band aid if you cannot show them! There were times when we would have a big cut or wound in the shin and of course the knee was never without a wound! But even though these are the places where you need to cover, we would not waste our precious band aids on them!
But a small nick on the face or hand and the brown ornament is shown with full pride! Unfortunately most of the band aids in the medical kit would have lost its glue or the inferior butter paper would have got stuck too tight and then there will not be any Band aud to show! What is the point of having a cut and not having a band aid to put over it!?
Sometimes they would becomes stinky and black but we would still hold on to it till the last vestiges of “My Precious” would be over!
So how did this amazing invention find its place on your medical kit?
Now coming to the story, it all started with the wife Josephine Knight Dickson was always getting minor nicks and burns while working in the kitchen. And while this may seem like no big deal these days, back when Knight Dickson was prepping her family’s meals in 1920, there were no good options for bandaging such small injuries hygienically and on top of that this was before antibiotics, so infections posed a serious risk!
Knight Dickson likely resorted to what many did at the time: winding a strip of fabric around her wound and tying a knot on the end to secure it—a hack that was neither sterile nor likely to withstand hand-washing but then you make do with what you can!
A frustrated Josephine shared her plight with her husband, Earle Dickson, who happened to be a cotton buyer for Johnson & Johnson! Normally though he may not listen to his wife (!!) but that day he did! So he thought what if he could create an easy-to-apply, sanitary covering for his wife’s wounds that would stay on while she went about her work?
Dickson brought home a cache of antiseptic cotton gauze and surgical adhesive tape, which were made by Johnson & Johnson as part of the company’s suite of sterile surgical products. He took a strip of tape that was 18 inches long by 3 inches wide, and laid a slightly narrower piece of gauze lengthwise down the middle. He then covered the surface with a crinoline fabric to keep it from sticking to itself, and folded up the whole thing into a neat roll that his wife could keep at the ready!
All Knight Dickson would need to do is unfold the roll, and use scissors to snip off as much adhesive bandage as needed to quickly cover her kitchen mishapsand help keep them clean!
The product worked so well for his wife that Dickson decided to share the invention with his boss, who quickly recognized its potential.
Soon afterward, Johnson & Johnson manufactured a small test batch of what it dubbed BAND-AID Brand adhesive bandages, and sold them to pharmacists!
And in case you thought it was an instant success! Well, it was Sholay! Meaning having a slow start but later on becoming a block buster!
After some efforts like tapping the company’s traveling salesmen to help demonstrate the product to doctors (yes, even doctors do not know everything !!) and retail pharmacists (in spite of the pharmacists thinking that they know everything!!) across the country, the product just took off and how!
In 1924, Johnson & Johnson began selling them in the form we know today: precut and individually wrapped, thanks to machinery the company created to mass-produce the bandages. That my friends is how you got the Band to aid your wound! Sounds like a great story!? So does the Birthday celebrity Rabindranath Tagore ji and his stories and poems!
Now make sure you do not have any cuts which need Band aids and sleep!
Shubh ratri!
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