I know bottles were made of glass, but what was IV tubing made of before the invention and widespread use of plastics?
What other common devices used in heathcare (latex gloves, syringes, needles, pulse-ox machines, anesthesia equipment) have changed since World War II and The Korean War?
I know most people here were nota round then, but I thought some folks might know from stories of family and friends.
I have been watching M*A*S*H and it has really got me thinking of nursing in the last half century.
It is a tape (moleskin, I believe) that is wrapped on the lower leg along with a metal attachment at the bottom of the foot. Weighted traction is placed on the leg to prevent muscle spasm and shortening after a hip fracture until they can get the patient in to surgery to fix them up.
ooh--bucks-- I"ve got a lol in it now, and, its the first time I've seen it since school (in 99)
I remember all the old techniques you're all mentioning. Hey, anybody remember Dakins solution and what it was used for? How about Benzoin? An Np told me recently no one uses that anymore.
Oh no--Dakins and benzoin are still out there! We still use then in our facility routinely! Actually, I use the benzoin and steri-strips to tape the NG tube in place--works better than a bandaid. :) Dakins is used as a chemical debridement for wounds/bedsores.
What a cool thread!!! I have been an antiquer for over twenty years and have had the most gorgeous enamel bedpans glass syringes. They were sterilized and I know a lady in town who used to go into the local doc's office every Saturday to sharpen his needles. I can remember as a kid in the 60's going into the dentist office. Gloves? What gloves??? Gas...one rubber mask fits all!!! Glass bottle IV's in the hospital too!
I used to collect fleams, blood cups/bowls for blood-letting and victorian type erasers that were sharpened for scalpels on the battlefield and other Civil War through Vietnam era med-surg kits and supplies. The fleams were made for peircing veins and some were extremely well made and signed by their makers and brought good money.
Alas... I sold my entire collection to help finance my way through nursing school. Someday maybe I'll start collecting again.
I know bottles were made of glass, but what was IV tubing made of before the invention and widespread use of plastics?
What other common devices used in heathcare (latex gloves, syringes, needles, pulse-ox machines, anesthesia equipment) have changed since World War II and The Korean War?
I know most people here were nota round then, but I thought some folks might know from stories of family and friends.
I have been watching M*A*S*H and it has really got me thinking of nursing in the last half century.
Before pleurovacs we used a series of glass bottles on the floor with the same principle that water would create negative pressure, the same thing with GI suction. For decubutis ulcers we used maalox and methiolate and the ulcer diet was for the patient to ingest alternating maalox and cream every hour.
I was told that before cardiac monitors the critical care nurse would tape a
cotton swap on a fulcrum (folder 4x4)on the chest with the non-cotton end at the PMI, the nurse could watch the cotton tip moving to watch for dysrythmias. I did this one night in the ER in the 70's when we ran out of monitors and the CCU was full. What are you going to do, have a nurse stand a the bedside with a finger on the patient's pulse all night? It worked OK but you still had to see the patient. No alarms. Back then we did not have pulse ox.
You got it- good old Dakins. Benzoin is good stuff for colostomies because if I recall it was felt to toughen the skin as well as create a more adherent surface. The paste for colostomies is terrific because it fills in gaps as post surgical edema decreases or if the T-Bar is still in place. Please educate me: what is Bucks traction?
After abdominal surgery the patient would get a binder that provided support.
It was a piece of cotton with looked like tenticles, the patient would lay on the fabric and the tenticles were braided on over the other to form support.
One of my nursing instructors told us that when she was in nurses training they were so poor they used to use Milk of Magnesia in place of polish on their white duty shoes! It probably worked really good because if you've ever tried to clean up a spot of MOM that has dried--good luck.
It was fun to read all the posts. I had heard of most of the things written about. The first nursing home I worked in had a small old sterilizer that sat on the counter in the clean utility room. The nurses used to wrap their own dressing change supplies and then sterilize them in this contraption. They had a larger one in the dirty utility room and us aides had to collect all the metal bedpans and urinals once a week, scrub them and sterilize every one of them in this sterilizer weekly.
There were no fitted bottom sheets when I started nursing. One of the first things we learned to do was make a very neat mitered corner. We also had a drawsheet on every patient bed that had to be perfectly centered between the ends of the mattress--and it had to be tight!
In the 80's one of our alcohol detox docs would sometimes order IV paraldehyde for his patients. It had to be given with a glass syringe which had to be hunted up in central service. This drug literallly "melts" plastic. We we told to inject it in the nearest port to the IV site and then flush afterwards with a lot of saline. Then hold your nose when you went into that patient's room because paraldehyde is excreted through the lungs and it stunk of the intense, nasty fruity smell as only an aldehyde can.
Oh the memories!! I relate to all of them Been Nursing for 42 years! We had a surgeon in the 60's that still used a bunson burner to sterilize the guaze and tape when he changed dressings. Stryker frames, what fun they were.Psych was my first speciality (after3 mo in training) very very scarey when you are 18 yo. But we made it through and came out as a good nurse able to deal with almost anything. Thanks for the memories!
I moved from a teaching hospital to a rural hospital in the early 80's. We had a spinal cord patient come in. (of course we didn't transfer to a trauma center, there were only a few designated in the country) It took me three days to convince the physician to let me get a circle-electric bed. He wanted us to use the stryker frame that had been in the back of a storage room for years. It wobbled when you touched it. When the patient was not improving he came to me to ask for the "new" bed, because it could be the patient's only chance. The patient made it.
Even before my time they used metal needles for IVs.
You will be an awsome nurse!! I remember metal bedpans and urinals that hurt when thrown at 3 am. We washed out the red rubber NGT to re use as that was "clean" not "sterile". Gloves were minimal as they made the patient feel "alienated" and "contagious" We never used gloves for any thing but "sterile technique" The intra-aortic ballon pump was a huge green machine that we kept plugged in because they said we had to!! We would rather "count the ggts" than trust that funny machine that did nothing but alarm. We watched acute Mi's have pain and give sublingual nitro with morphine and hope they were alive in the AM. We saw every arrythmia known to man depending on where the Mi was. Open hearts were kept intubated for 3 weeks to allow the "heart and lungs to rest" Chest tubes were three bottles on the floor. We wore white hose white dresses and perfect nurses caps!! We used methylene blue in EVERY tube feed to be sure they did not asparate, so what if their urine was alittle bluish! Ventricular aneurysms were common and they turned someone blue from the nipple line up. Rotating tourniquets were first line for Pulmonary Edema/CHF. I remember the first time I hung IV nitro...we thought if we dropped it it would explode!! No ICU/CCU was without a roll of tin foil as Nipride needed to be protected from light...all the way to the site!! Amphotericin B was the horror antibiotic of the living dead and Levophed was leave them dead levophed!!
You did not tell the patient about anything just that the "doctor ordered it" and does anyone remember the doctor's smoking at the nurses station or putting their ciggaretts out in the ash tray in the paitents room????? Iv's were glass tubing was rubber. It was grains, drams, minims ande nothing was by weight. I remember a cardioligist who at the bedside of a coding patient insisted on mouth to mouth!!!! Being the only "real way" to ventilate someone. We had no clue as to the full ramifications of our actions as the "doctor said so" The code cart was a nightmare as were the Vents they resembled high powered generators to power New York! I remember Bretolol being flown in from Chicago for a lady in "torsades de point" what is torsades I asked!! IV subq was common in dehydrated Pedi. Glass syringes and multidose bottles for narcs. If they moved restrain them if they detox start an alcohol gtt. Ashot and a beer at hs was a common order. We chased more mercury therm. than I can count heck we smoked at the desk!!! By the way..in nursing school my future sci-fi paper was on the "ventricular assist device and the jarvik artificial heart.... for hust a few boston
In the ER we had a Max Cart and it was the policy that any cardiac arrest from the street went on this cart. It weighed a ton, was a huge box shapped thing that had a thumper and a ventillator built in and IF the patient made it we would have to transport to the ICU on it. It was very painful when it ran over your toes. I got in trouble one time for not putting a baby in arrest on it. I wish I could draw it for you!!!!!!!!!
I work in a psychiatric facility, and one of the patients has been going out for ECT for the past few months. I could have asked one of the nurses or docs at work but it always slipped my mind while at work and now Im on my "vacation before I have no life for four months!" so Im asking before it slips my mind AGAIN! Im a secretary who starts NS in a week and I was wondering how ECTs are done now days? Is it still the same as what you described?
Hopefully someone here will be able to tell you more about current ECT procedure since I haven't been in Psych nursing for umpteen years, but I do know they don't use it nearly so often since the advent of chemical treatments, i.e., tranquilizers and such, and I also know that they now administer the treatments under general anesthesia. In fact, I did a search and came up with this page that seemed pretty current and complete.
I work in a psychiatric facility, and one of the patients has been going out for ECT for the past few months. I could have asked one of the nurses or docs at work but it always slipped my mind while at work and now Im on my "vacation before I have no life for four months!" so Im asking before it slips my mind AGAIN! Im a secretary who starts NS in a week and I was wondering how ECTs are done now days? Is it still the same as what you described?
Oh, No! We do them in the recovery room (PACU) at our hospital with a nurse anesthetist giving sedation. I think the voltage is lower than it used to be and the patients keep coming back on their own free will so it must not be too bad of an experience for them.
I am not sure about the other things you asked about but as far as glvoes go...I don't think they used anything. When I was in school we watched a really really outdated video on Pelvic exams.... and the lady doing the exam washed her hands and did not wear gloves at all. I think the video was fromt he late 70's or early 80's. But I remember thinking when we were watching it... EWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Yuck! I know of a proctologist who still does rectals without gloves...what is he thinking!? Needless to say I have the phone compltely sanitized after he comes though, have thrown away pens and we've thrown out entire trays of bagels/ dishes of candy because we can't be sure whick one he picked up then put down. What is wrong with him anyway?? :stone
Im a secretary who starts NS in a week and I was wondering how ECTs are done now days? Is it still the same as what you described?
CashewLPN, LPN
348 Posts
ooh--bucks-- I"ve got a lol in it now, and, its the first time I've seen it since school (in 99)
-Cashew