Surgical dressings and turbulent years of cotton industry

Everyday use of a simple cotton bud should remind us of our not so distant past and of the appalling trade in people. Harvesting this precious commodity required forced labour eventually leading to a key turning point in the history of surgery, as civil war raged in America during the 1860s. The fight to end slavery was to reveal a new weapon against disease and certain death. A material used in this struggle against wound infection was the available stockpiles of redundant cotton. Once boiled to make softer, its use on patients in military hospitals proved to be the first clinical application of sterile surgical dressings.