William Halsted

Halsted introduced rubber surgical gloves in 1889 or 1890 at Johns Hopkins Hospital after his surgical nurse, Caroline Hampton, developed severe contact dermatitis from the carbolic acid (phenol) and mercuric chloride used for chemical sterilization. He commissioned the Goodyear Rubber Company to produce thin rubber gloves to protect her hands, and the practice then spread throughout the surgical team.

Halsted developed the radical mastectomy in the 1880s, an operation that removed the entire breast along with the underlying pectoral muscles and axillary lymph nodes to treat breast cancer. This procedure remained the standard of care for nearly a century before being largely superseded by less invasive surgeries combined with radiation and chemotherapy.

Halsted established a hierarchical residency training system at Johns Hopkins in the 1890s in which surgeons-in-training progressed through years of graduated responsibility under direct supervision. This model, influenced by the German system Halsted observed during his time in Europe, became the template for surgical and eventually all medical residency programs in the United States.

Yes, Halsted developed a cocaine addiction in the 1880s after experimenting with the drug as a local anesthetic for nerve blocks, which was then a novel medical application. He reportedly managed his addiction for the rest of his career while maintaining his surgical practice at Johns Hopkins, and his colleague William Welch helped conceal the extent of the problem.