Who Invented the Band-Aid?

Finish the following sentence: “I am stuck on Band-Aid…” If you immediately sang: “…cuz Band-Aid’s stuck on me!”, congratulations: you have a 50-year-old ad campaign living rent-free in your head. A staple of every first aid kit, Band-Aids are a quick and convenient solution to all the minor cuts, scrapes, burns and other boo-boos life can dish out. Indeed, so fully have these little sticking-plasters permeated popular culture that the brand lent its name to the 1984 charity supergroup behind the hit song “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” while the term “band-aid solution” has entered the lexicon as a byword for temporary, often slapdash repairs. But while the idea of a gauze pad attached to a strip of adhesive tape might seem so basic that it must have existed forever, as we covered in our previous video Who Invented Duct Tape?, even the simplest inventions have to come from somewhere, and surprisingly the idea of the self-adhesive bandage is only a little over a century old. The story of how this simple idea went from home remedy to household name is one of a klutzy housewife, a devoted husband, tireless innovation, and clever marketing. This is the fascinating story of the Band-Aid. Author: Gilles Messier Editor: Daven Hiskey Host: Daven Hiskey Producer: Caden Nielsen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices