Dressing up the plaster

Coffee break 1

QUESTION Sticking plasters were invented by Earle Dickson (a Thomas Anderson and Johnson & Johnson employee) in 1920. Yet Captain Marryat, in Mr Midshipman Easy (1836), refers to his doctor asking: ‘Have you such a thing as a sticking plaster in the house?’ What might this have been?

ADHESIVE plasters have been in use since the late 18th century. Originally, they were made inhouse by pharmacists from plant resin, lead plaster, wax or soap and called emplastrum resinae.

The most prized were made from elemi gum, a soft, aromatic resin collected in the Philippines from the Canarium luzonicum tree.

A pharmacopeia from 1822 says: ‘It is the common adhesive plaster of the shops, employed for retaining the sides of wounds and dressing ulcers. It is usually spread upon muslin, kept in the shops ready spread.’

On March 20, 1845, William H. Shecut and Horace H. Day patented a new plaster formed of treated India rubber gum applied to muslin cloth. Unlike others, it claimed to remain porous. The patent was sold to pharmacist Thomas Allcock, who marketed Allcock’s Porous Plasters as a cure for ailments from lumbago to whooping cough.

In 1920, by adding gauze to an adhesive plaster, Earle Dickson created the modern Band-Aid. Jessica Lund, Llandudno.

QUESTION Which aeroplane had the largest wingspan of all time?

FURTHER to the earlier answer, while the Hughes-Kaiser HK-1 Hercules ‘ Spruce Goose’ wingspan of 320 ft is the largest, the Airbus A380, at 262 ft, does not come second.

This accolade goes to the Soviet cargo carrier Antonov An225 Mriya, at 290 ft. Still in service, it holds the world record for an airlifted single-item payload of 418,830 lb, and an airlifted total payload of 559,580 lb. J. E. Richards, Birmingham.