health care workers first used chlorinated lime to decontaminate hands in 1828.
health care workers first used chlorinated lime to decontaminate hands in 1828.
when did health care workers first use chlorinated lime to decontaminate hands?
1828
labarraque's chlorinated lime and soda solutions have been advocated since 1828 to prevent infection (called "contagious infection", presumed to be transmitted by "miasmas"), and to treat putrefaction of existing wounds, including septic wounds. in his 1828 work, labarraque recommended that doctors breathe chlorine, wash their hands in chlorinated lime, and even sprinkle chlorinated lime about the patients' beds in cases of "contagious infection". in 1828, the contagion of infections was well known, even though the agency of the microbe was not discovered until more than half a century later.
chlorine
the move into health care was particularly risky. the national labor relations act (nlra) of 1935 originally included health care workers from the protection of federal labor law, but the taft-hartley act amendments exempted workers employed by non-profit health care organizations from the law in 1947. since nearly all health care organizations at the time were non-profit, this effectively excluded the vast majority of health care workers from federal labor law. in 1962, congress passed legislation allowing workers in health care institutions owned by the federal government to engage in collective bargaining. publicly owned hospitals were covered by the nlra in 1967, and non-profit nursing homes in 1970. congress amended the taft-hartley act in 1974 to bring non-profit hospitals back under the nlra's coverage. bseiu had organized its first hospital workers in san francisco in the 1930s. hardy's push into health care proceeded very slowly. nationwide, only 2.3 percent of all health care institutions had a union in 1970. despite a sharp upturn in the number of dismissals of health care workers for union activity in the 1950s and 1960s, hardy had organized one of the largest pockets of unionized health care workers outside new york city by the late 1960s.
george hardy (labor leader)