Scrubs! Who invented these comfy uniforms?
& how did they become the main (& sometimes mandatory) apparel of heath care workers?
lol they're supposed to not attract lint but my dickies do!
In contrast to the uniforms long required of nurses, surgeons did not wear any kind of specialized garments until well into the 20th century. Surgical procedures were conducted in an "operating theatre" - an amphitheatre- or auditorium-type room with a raised table at center stage and several rows of seats to allow students and other spectators to observe the case in progress. The surgeon wore his street clothes, with perhaps a butcher's apron to protect his clothing from blood stains, and he operated bare-handed with non-sterile instruments and supplies. (Gut and silk sutures were sold as open strands with reusable, hand-threaded needles; packing gauze was made of sweepings from the floors of cotton mills.) In contrast to today's concept of surgery as a profession that emphasizes cleanliness and conscientiousness, at the beginning of the 20th century the mark of a busy and successful surgeon was the profusion of blood and fluids on his clothes.
With the "Spanish flu" pandemic of 1918 and the growing medical interest in Lister's antiseptic theory, some surgeons began wearing cotton gauze masks in surgery - however, this was not to protect the patient from intra-operative infection, but to protect the surgeon from the patient's diseases. Around the same time, operating theatre staff began wearing heavy rubber gloves to protect their hands from the solutions used to clean the room and equipment, a practice surgeons grudgingly adopted.[1]
By the 1940s, advances in surgical antisepsis (now called aseptic technique) and the science of wound infection led to the adoption of antiseptic drapes and gowns for operating room ("OR") use. Instruments, supplies and dressings were routinely sterilized by exposure to either high-pressure steam or ethylene oxide (EtO) gas.
Originally, OR attire was white to emphasize cleanliness. However, the combination of bright operating lights and an all-white environment led to eyestrain for the surgeon and staff, and additionally, many people found the sight of bright red blood splashes on a white gown or drape rather off-putting. By the 1950s and 1960s, most hospitals had abandoned white OR apparel in favor of various shades of green, which provided a high-contrast environment and reduced eye fatigue.
By the 1970s, surgical attire had largely reached its modern state: a short-sleeve V-necked shirt and drawstring pants or a short-sleeve calf-length dress, made of green cotton or cotton/polyester blend. Over this was worn a tie-back or bouffant-style cloth cap, a gauze or synthetic textile mask, a cloth or synthetic surgical gown, latex gloves and supportive closed-toe shoes. This uniform was originally known as "surgical greens" because of its color, but came to be called "scrubs" because it was worn in a "scrubbed" environment.
