Disposable Medical Supplies

In the beginning of the hospital and healthcare world, not a lot was known about cleanliness and why hospital materials should be sterile. The need for sterility hadn't really been established yet and the means of spreading disease wasn't well known. Once it was an established fact that bacteria and viral infections caused disease and infection, new methods for removing or killing the bacteria were experimented with.

Different solutions that ingredients like carbolic acid entered into the mixture. In British hospitals, Joseph Lister began to experiment with different chemicals that would help to kill the bacteria and lower the chance of infection. His research was not well received by medical practitioners. Some physicians and hospitals began to follow the examples that Lister set but most did not believe that bacteria caused the infection and once they did believe, they were not believers of the fact that some types of solutions could kill those bacteria and alleviate the sickness and death that came from infection.

Over time as the idea of infections became more accepted, health care providers and professionals began to use antiseptics and to create conditions by which the instruments in the hospital were kept cleaner. Enter the autoclave. The autoclave was a means by which the instruments in the hospital were cleaned and made sterile.

Today we accept that bacteria can create conditions by which infections can take place.Each time those materials were used they were sterilized in the autoclave, a device that is much like a modern day pressure cooker. It builds up pressure and temperature to kill bacteria, but it was not foolproof. Some kinds of disease processes were not prevented. Prions, which cause Mad Cow Disease, were often not killed. Some bacteria remained because the kind of instrument was not able to be autoclaved due to the fact that some of those instruments could also melt.

The answer was that instruments should be created and delivered in a sterile environment, completely free from any kind of bacteria that might infect an already ill patient. Enter the single use sterile materials which were pre-packaged. These disposable medical supplies were far more healthy and a far better surety against any kind of bacterial infection. They are single use materials which, having been used one time are then discarded.

Today, thankfully there is no need for a second use and no need to try to remove bacteria or fungi from the items. The disposable medical supplies which are largely in use today are one of the best and most positive things to come along in many years. They provide for the better health of the patient and also protect the health care practitioner since many injuries took place in the past as health care providers attempted to clean and sterlize the instruments that they used.