A simple act of care has laid a strong foundation today, providing the most essential safety measures in our modern surgery, and all-day practices in the medical field. The introduction of surgical gloves had a great impact on the safety of surgery and also saved countless people's lives.

Do you know the story behind the invention?

Joseph Lister was a popular aseptic surgeon in the 1860s and 1870s. Lister insisted that all doctors and nurses must wash their hands in carbolic acid. The idea was then later adopted by Halsted at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Halsted had surgeons and nurses who washed their hands with soap, followed by a solution of potassium permanganate, a hot oxalic acid bath, and a mercury-chloride compound. Dr. Halsted has worked often with a nurse named Caroline Hampton.⁽¹⁾

Who was Caroline Hampton?

Hampton came from a family of South Carolina aristocrats and her uncle was Wade Hampton, a famous confederate lieutenant general. When she was less than a year old, she lost her mother due to tuberculosis in 1862 and then lost her father in a civil war battle a year later.⁽²⁾

The family finances suffered a huge impact in 1865 when William Tecumseh Sherman’s party burned the Hampton plantation. After that disaster, the orphaned Caroline was raised by three aunts in a tiny home. The aunts who raised her realized Caroline had bigger ambitions than plantation life. She shocked her family in 1885 by announcing she was moving to New York. She desired to get an education and make a living for herself by becoming a nurse.

Caroline Hampton was known for her fine manual dexterity and was praised for her unusually efficient work during operations. She came to work in the year 1889 at Johns Hopkins Hospital.⁽¹⁾

Have a Look into Halsted's Journey:

Halsted was considered one of the most brilliant surgeons in the country. He trained with top doctors in Europe and then settled in New York. He developed a lot of new innovative procedures for operating on thyroid glands, blood vessels, gall stones and hernias. He was best known for his work in introducing the radical mastectomy to treat breast cancer, a procedure where a surgeon excavates not only the tumor but also the entire breast and muscles. This procedure is now discredited.⁽³⁾

The innovation of cocaine in the year 1880 ruined Halsted's life and reputation. Firstly, he started to use this new drug as a topical anesthetic in eye surgery, and the results showed promising results. Later on, to understand and learn about the effects of this new drug, Halsted started to inject it into his body. Because of this, he got hooked on it immediately and in 1886 Halsted rehabilitated himself for around six months and around 9 months in the year 1887.

He finally kicked his dependency on cocaine by substituting it with morphine. In those days, morphine was far more acceptable compared to cocaine, but a black mark was added to Halsted. Halsted's reputation was ruined due to this addiction in New York. Only the emerging Johns Hopkins Hospital has taken him, where the administrators put him on probation right from the beginning.⁽⁴⁾

Halsted and Caroline's Journey: An act of love and care that transformed surgery in the medical field

Halsted and Caroline were both working at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where Dr. William Stewart Halsted insisted surgeons and nurses wash their hands with soap, then a solution of potassium permanganate, a hot oxalic acid bath, and a mercury-chloride compound. Caroline was a nurse who worked with Halsted and was often praised as “usually efficient” during operations. In the winter of the years 1889 and 1890, Caroline, who was in charge of the operating room, complained that the solution of mercuric chloride had caused dermatitis on her hand and arms. Halsted took action to help her keep her job as she is an efficient woman.⁽⁴⁾

Halsted has requested the Goodyear Rubber Company to make a custom pair of rubber gloves for Caroline. The idea worked out well, and Hampton continued her work at the hospital. This trial has given a lot of satisfaction and additional gloves were ordered. After returning from a vacation in autumn, Halsted found that most of the rest of his staff also had rubber gloves made for themselves and were using them during operations. After a certain time, the assistants became so accustomed to working with gloves. Halsted and Caroline married in June 1890.⁽²⁾

Halsted and Caroline started life together:

Halsted purchased 400 acres of land from Caroline's aunts and named it “High Hampton”, a name that combined the two families in a similar way to High Halsted, the name given to Halsted estate in England. Later, they built a cottage. Dr. and Mrs. Halsted raised a wonderful collection of prized dahlias and also planted many unusual trees on the property, which ultimately grew to around 2200 acres after Halsted purchased the adjacent small farms. Their journey continued with a lot of love and care, spending time discussing medicine, science, farming and also etymology. Later, Halsted passed away in 1922 and Caroline passed two months after him.⁽²⁾

Overall, Caroline was a great lady who introduced rubber gloves in the operating room and lived for 32 years with a complex man who was an innovative genius and considered the father of American surgery.

References:

1. Kean, Sam. "The Nurse Who Introduced Gloves to the Operating Room." Distillations Magazine. Unexpected Stories From Science Past. Science History Institute Museum & Library, May 5, 2020. Accessed March 4, 2025. https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/the-nurse-who-introduced-gloves-to-the-operating-room/.

2. Lathan, S. R. "Caroline Hampton Halsted: The First to Use Rubber Gloves in the Operating Room." Proceedings (Baylor University. Medical Center) 23, no. 4 (2010): 389. Accessed March 4, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1080/08998280.2010.11928658. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2943454/.

3. Spirling, L. I., and I. R. Daniels. "William Stewart Halsted--Surgeon Extraordinaire: A Story of 'Drugs, Gloves and Romance'." The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health 122, no. 2 (2002): 122-24. Accessed March 4, 2025. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12134764/.

4. Ryan, Shaelyn. "The Story Of Gloves of Love." Museum of Health Care, February 4, 2024. Accessed March 4, 2025. https://museumofhealthcare.blog/the-story-of-the-gloves-of-love/.

By Dr Lakshmisahithi Tanneru

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