Without the Boy Scouts, Band-Aids might not have stuck around

[FSogol]

Sales of Band-Aids were flagging until Johnson & Johnson made an ingenious marketing move.
In the 1920s, the company began distributing, for free, an unlimited supply of Band-Aids to Boy Scout troops across the country, according to this lesson from TED-Ed. Band-Aids also were included in the custom first-aid kits Johnson & Johnson produced for the Boy Scouts of America. The kits were designed to help Boy Scouts earn merit badges like First Aid. The original 1925 “Boy Scout First-Aid Packet” contained a triangular bandage for a sling, a compress and two safety pins. It came in a simple cardboard container.

In 1926, Johnson & Johnson and the BSA asked silent film cowboy Fred Thomson to show Scouts how to use the kits. He bandaged the leg of his horse, Silver King, for the demo. A few years later, Johnson & Johnson debuted an upgraded BSA first-aid kit in a tin box. Inside, Scouts found burn and antibiotic creams, first-aid instructions, and several kinds of bandages, including Band-Aids.

The collaboration with the BSA proved fruitful. Johnson & Johnson effectively made Band-Aids a default part of every Scout’s camping gear — a tradition that continues today in many packs, troops, ships and crews.

“This was the beginning of marketing to children and families that helped familiarize the public with the Johnson & Johnson name and their new product,” according to this article in Smithsonian magazine.

More at:

https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2018/01/18/band-aids-and-the-boy-scouts/

[rsdsharp]

1. When I was a kid, back in the late 1950s, early 1960s

we had a Little Golden Book called Nurse Nancy. It was about a little girl named Nancy who (obviously) wanted to be a nurse.

She treated dolls, animals, and her brothers with Johnson and Johnson first aid products including Ban-Aids. Oddly, I just found the book on amazon and downloaded it. there is no mention of any brand names. My memory is quite clear, however. I wonder if we had a version sponsored by Johnson and Johnson.

[FSogol]

2. Just googling that book (which I think my sister had) there are versions that came with actual

Johnson & Johnson band-aids. Another example of product placement.

[MineralMan]

5. Let's play Doctor and Nurse, OK?

[FSogol]

6. Great fun!

[MineralMan]

7. My mom and a neighbor once walked in on me

and the neighbor's daughter playing doctor when we were about 4 years old. They giggled at us and got us back into our clothes. I think they probably explained something about how we should probably keep our clothes on while playing, but I don't remember any hysterics about it. It's one of my earliest memories, actually.

About 12 years later, the two of us dated for a while. I won't go into that, though.

[FSogol]

8. LOL, did the lesson about keeping your clothes on work? n/t

[MineralMan]

9. Yeah...no...

But, our parents never walked in on us then, so...

On that first occasion, my mother would have been 25 years old, and probably the neighbor, too. They found it amusing. I'm not sure they'd have felt the same later on, though...

[cyclonefence]

3. I am curious about this "antibiotic cream"

It's my understanding that antibiotics were not in general use until late in WWII. Am I misinformed? I happen to know that a US Public Health Hospital in Lexington KY received raw penicillin mold, cultured in glass jars, sometime after 1942. The surgeon, Selig Strax MD, did not know how to use the mold--what a dose was, for example--and simply scooped the slime out of the jar and onto wounds. I don't see how an antibiotic cream, distributed to the Boy Scouts, no less, could have been possible.

[FSogol]

4. Could have been petroleum jelly with lanolin which was used for burns. Doubtful that it was a true

antibiotic. The term was probably added by the author.

[Brother Buzz]

10. That's my take, too

Back then, there were antiseptics that contained iodine, sulfur, mercury, and the like, but they hardly compare with the antibiotics we use today.

[LeftInTX]

11. It was probably an antiseptic and not an antibiotic

Heck, I didn't see antibiotic ointments until I was an adult.

I was born in 1956. My parents were fond of mercurochrome, we begged them to start using Bactine. They refused. I often wonder about the high petroleum content in many modern antibiotic ointments.

[cyclonefence]

14. I bet you're right

My favorite? Gentian violet!

[LeftInTX]

15. I was spared of Gentian violet

Back in the 80's, I was driving around and noticed a poor kid who's entire mouth was died purple. I felt bad for that kid.

[oneshooter]

12. Possably sulfa powder in a liquid base. n/t

[jmowreader]

13. Sulfa was introduced in the 1930s.