The term ‘First Aid’ was first coined in 1878 as civilian ambulance services started to provide aid to injured workers in large railway and mining districts. St. John Ambulance and British Red Cross were the first organisations to champion the practice of First Aid, based on the principles of the religious group ‘Knights Hospitaller’ who provided treatment and training for treating common battlefield injuries in the middle ages. The International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement began in 1863 when the Swiss businessman Henry Dunant witnessed the suffering of thousands of men left to die due to lack of immediate care after the Battle of Solferino in 1859.
In 1885, Robert Wood Johnson, a forty year old pharmacist, developed the world’s first ready-made surgical dressings. Johnson went into partnership with his two brothers and Johnson and Johnson was born. Johnson and Johnson published ‘Modern Methods of Antiseptic Wound Treatment’ in 1888 which became an authoritative wound-care information source for the world’s leading physicians. They also manufactured and marketed the first ever First Aid kits in 1891 under the Red Cross trademark- originally designed to aid railway workers who needed immediate medical attention.
In 1920, Earle Dickson, a Johnson and Johnson employee came up with the idea for adhesive bandages. Dickson’s invention was given the brand name Band Aid which is now a general trademark used for any adhesive bandage in the USA. Versions of Dickson’s Band Aid invention can now be found in every well-stocked First Aid kit and have revolutionised modern first aid.
Medical knowledge advancements bring changes to First Aid practice. The recovery position is a well-established suffocation prevention technique, however First Aid organisations such as St. John Ambulance and the British Red Cross were slow in adopting the method to their manuals. The 1950 40th edition of the St. John Manual was the first to include instructions resembling the modern recovery position.
Although the practice of First Aid has developed with medical and technological advances, there has always been the same three key aims:
Although basic principles such as applying pressure to a bleeding wound are often picked up through life experiences, effective, life-saving first aid training should be provided. Employers must have completed a first aid needs assessment to determine whether the workplace requires a trained first aider. If that is the case, or you want to learn more, details of our CITB approvedFirst Aid courses can be found here.