Sterilizing rubber gloves

From A General textbook of nursing, published in 1945.

Preparation of Gloves For Steam Sterilization.

(1) The cuffs are folded back. (2) They are placed in a glove sac. (3) A gauze packet of powder is placed in each glove sac. The gloves are packed in drums in sizes as shown.

This is a tantalizing, and perhaps a little shocking, glimpse into a very different era. We can't most of us imagine a medical setting without rubber gloves, well I can't. But though they were apparently introduced in 1889, the disposable kind didn't arrive until 1964.

I think we've come to take that so for granted, the gloves come out of the box, onto the hands, off the hands and into the rubbish. Hard to imagine having to clean and reuse them. And such a complex process it sounds. I wonder what a ‘glove sac’ was? Obviously a bag of some sort, but what would it be made of? And what would these drums be like? At a guess, the gloves were stored in same after steaming, the powder (talcum I presume) used to assist in donning them.

I read in another book that it was thought preferable to boil them, and from instructions that sounds even more complicated, because the rubber lasted longer than if steamed. I'd give a deal to be able to see… or even share the pictures in these old medical books I collect, so someone could describe them to me. Non-working optical sensors are a real nuisance haha.

Anyway, hoped this might start an interesting discussion.

These days, if you want sterile gloves, buy them sterile. A catheter insertion costs a couple of bucks and has a pair in it. Use one time and discard.

Why rubber gloves? Maybe they can be found, but I couldn’t find a source on the internet for sterile rubber gloves. Maybe they are out there. Boiling rubber gloves will kill a lot of bacteria, but it won’t sterilize them. If you want sterile, buy a sterile pair and discard them after use.

Is it very reasonable to want to transpose the practices of 1945 into the 21st century?

Today the gloves and finger cots used are reputed to be single-use and, except for an invasive surgical procedure, it does not appear useful that they be sterile.

It is also now known that latex, the basic component of rubber, is often a source of allergies, so it is preferable to use nitrile protective means.

I'm afraid you have all rather mis-understood the nature of this topic. It may be that I have put it in the wrong place, but I couldn't think of anywhere more suitable.

In a nutshell, this topic isn't at all geared towards any practical purpose. I'm neither looking for, nor suggesting doing anything with gloves, rubber or otherwise. I was simply musing over the gulf between the practises of the past and those of today, and speculating about some of the unanswered questions I had from reading the passage. I hoped some might know more, or might enjoy to muse with me.

Had this been an enema discussion, I could have put it in the history section, but I don't believe the medfet board has one. I do enjoy, and try to write, medical stories set in the 1950s and earlier. Most of those I've read feature the use of rubber gloves, but none so far that I've seen acknowledges how much more complex their use must have been before the use of disposable ones. So I suspect this is a little-known fact and therefore worthy of a bit of chewing over.

Sorry if this doesn't seem the place for such idle ramblings haha.