In one form or another, bandages and dressings have likely been in use since prehistoric times, with plant materials and strips of animal hide serving the purpose initially and, later, fabrics. Early writings from Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Greece, and Rome describe wound ointments and dressings, and Homer (c. 900-800 b.c.) mentions bandages for battle wounds, as do Hippocrates (c. 460 b.c.) and the Bible. Ancient Egyptian embalmers were highly skilled in the art of bandaging. The great French surgeon Ambroise Paré (1510-1590) revived and modernized the treatment of wounds by abandoning cauterization in favor of ointments covered with carefully applied bandages. Three hundred years later, English surgeon Joseph Lister (1827-1912) pioneered the use of bandages and dressings soaked in carbolic acid as an antiseptic. Adhesive plasters, the precursors of today's adhesive bandages, were mentioned in an 1830 Philadelphia medical journal, patented in 1845 by...